


Bad Ideas

by theworldunseen



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Discussions of past abusive relationship and incest, F/M, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Inspired by Music, Like Cheers but different, Slow Burn-ish, Tyrion is sober and he runs a bar
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-11
Updated: 2019-07-23
Packaged: 2020-04-24 10:15:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 24,525
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19171234
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theworldunseen/pseuds/theworldunseen
Summary: Jaime Lannister is moving on with his life. He's in therapy, he's close to his brother again, and he does not need to be falling in love with a tall, blonde keyboardist who isn't that nice to him anyway.Brienne Tarth is doing just fine. She has two good friends and a fun band and it would be a terrible idea to make out with Jaime Lannister. Not that she even wants to.





	1. I hope that you don't think I'm rude

**Author's Note:**

> This was going to be a fun oneshot inspired by Tessa Violet’s song “Bad Ideas,” but then I sent Jaime to therapy and it spiraled a little bit out of control. Enjoy.

“You’re letting a band play here?”

Tyrion grinned at him from behind the bar.

“Why shouldn’t I?” Jaime’s brother said, with a laugh in his eyes as he shined a pint glass. The bar had just opened for the evening, but it was mostly empty.

“It’s a little small for live music,” Jaime grumbled. This was an understatement. The Red Keep was not a large bar. 

“They said it wouldn’t be a problem,” Tyrion said as he filled the glass with stout. He slid it to his brother, who’d gotten better at catching it with his left hand, finally.

“They?” Jaime said. He could only wonder what type of band his brother had secured.

“They,” Tyrion said, as he searched for their flyer. “The...Rosewolves.” He slammed the piece of electric yellow paper on the counter.

“The Rosewolves,” it said in big, hand-drawn block letters. “King’s Landing’s finest indie pop trio.” Then it had their Twitter and Instagram handles. Jaime pulled out his phone to look them up.

“Oh,” he said, as he scrolled through their feed. “ _ Women _ . Which is the one you’re trying to fuck?”

Tyrion laughed as he wiped the counter. A former alcoholic running a bar seemed like the type of thing that only happened on  _ Cheers _ , but somehow, Tyrion made it work. He said a bar was more a meeting place than a drinking place, and he had some stupidly good non-alcoholic cocktails. 

“All of them,” he said. “Well, maybe not the tall one. Too many height jokes.”

Jaime looked at the three women as he scrolled through the feed. The youngest one, who played lead guitar, had long red hair that fell past her waist. The lead singer and bass guitarist was a pretty brunette who seemed to never get photographed without at least one rose in her hair. 

The tall one was in the fewest photos. The keyboardist, she had short blonde hair and seemed to never smile. She looked like she could kick the shit out of Jaime in five seconds flat. It wasn’t a terrible image. 

“Well good luck with that,” Jaime said as he closed his phone. 

“Even if  _ they  _ aren’t interested,” Tyrion said, “You know who listens to women bands? Women. And what do I always say this place needs?”

“ _ Customers _ ,” Jaime said. 

“And men like to go where there are women! It’s good for business.”

Jaime look a long sip from his drink. 

“Are they any good?” he asked. 

“Come Thursday at 9 to find out.”

—

Jaime came at 7. He thought it might get crowded, and he wanted to get a good seat at the bar. That’s what he told his brother, at least. The full truth was that his evenings were a lot freer lately, and, facing free time as a single adult for the first time, he didn’t know what to do with it. And Tyrion was sort of his only friend, though he’d never admit. Tyrion would either make fun of him or be  _ sickly sentimental _ about it, and Jaime didn’t know which was worse. He wasn’t a delicate flower. He was doing fine, all things considered. That’s what his therapist said, at least.

Jaime was wrong — it was not crowded. He and Tyrion comfortably say around and bullshitted about their days for an hour. 

Tyrion was looking to hire a new bartender, but all the candidates he’d interviewed had been nightmarish in their own unique way. He was thinking of hiring the least experienced one just because he seemed like a nice person and he hadn’t scoffed at the word  _ mocktail _ .

Jaime complained about the lengthy emails his boss sent him at work — “Why couldn’t he just walk over to my desk to tell me that? He sits two cubicles away” — but in the middle of the story he realized how happy he was to have something  _ normal _ to complain about after years of doom and gloom and fuckedupness. 

Then at 8 the Rosewolves arrived. The brunette came barreling in the door, a flower crown on her head, her guitar strapped to her back. 

“We’re here!” she announced to the bar, as if everyone had been anxiously awaiting their arrival. Maybe Tyrion  _ had _ , Jaime realized, when he saw his brother run to the door to help carry an amp. 

“Tyrion!” the flower girl shouted before embracing his brother. It was  _ very _ friendly and Jaime made a note to get the backstory out of someone — maybe the other bartender, Bronn — later. 

Next came the red head. She was wearing the shortest dress Jaime had ever seen, but she didn’t seem nervous about flashing anyone. Maybe she wanted to, even. She looked around the bar and grinned so wide, you might think it was Radio City.

Last was the tall one, the blonde. She carried her keyboard and an enormous amp with ease. Her short hair stuck out at every angle and she wore a baggy green jumpsuit, like a mechanic. But it was too short for her long legs.

“Where should I put these?” she asked Tyrion, who was still chatting with the brunette and the redhead. He didn’t hear her. Jaime jumped off his chair to assist. He was just being helpful, of course.

“I think he wants you over there,” he said, gesturing to the corner Bronn had cleared of tables. 

“That’s not going to be enough space,” she said, annoyed. 

“I told him that,” Jaime said, also annoyed. It wasn’t  _ his _ fault. “Didn’t you see the place before?”

“They did,” she said, nodding at her bandmates. Jaime still desperately wanted the back story of this connection. “Haven’t you hosted a band before?”

“I don’t work here,” Jaime said. “He’s my brother. But no, he hasn’t.”

The blonde chewed on her lip, thinking. It should’ve been unattractive; it wasn’t. 

“But surely you’ve played small venues before, right?” he asked. She blushed, red spreading across her freckled face. He wondered how many freckles she had. He wanted to see them.

“No,” she said, reluctantly. “It’s not like … a serious band. Margaery mostly just wanted to dress up and sing Carly Rae Jepsen.” From her nod, Jaime got that Margaery was the flowery one. 

“A noble pursuit. Let me help you,” he said, taking one of the bags from her arms. She nodded her thanks and he saw his eyes flicker to his right wrist, handless, but she said nothing. He was grateful. 

“I’m Jaime by the way,” he said as he trailed behind her to the cleared corner. 

“Tyrion, do you have power strips?” she shouted across the room to his brother. Tyrion ran behind the bar to get some. Jaime stood around, useless, as Margaery and the other one came over to start setting up. The tall one ignored him now.

She hadn’t said her name. Jaime went back to his barstool. Fine, it was fine. What did he care? He didn’t need keyboard girl.

—

A small crowd did come, eventually. It seemed to be mostly their friends, and they were more enthusiastic than the band probably merited. He could admit that they did a rousing rendition of “Run Away With Me,” though.

Jaime watched the keyboard girl despite himself. While Margaery and Red seemed nervous, she was completely in control. She didn’t seem to … care? She could’ve been in a room alone and he thought she’d look the same. Her nonchalance was very rock n roll. Not that he cared!

Tyrion seemed happy, with the customers and music. The bar  _ was _ too small for live entertainment, but it made the whole thing seem cool and edgy and dangerous. 

When the set was over, the band was flooded by their friends and Jaime decided it was time to pack it in. He had work tomorrow, after all. Tyrion was too busy taking drink orders for a proper goodbye, so Jaime merely saluted him on the way out. 

—

Brienne Tarth had regrets. She regretted joining her friends’ dumb band. No, that wasn’t true. She liked it, really. It made her feel like all of those years of piano lessons had paid off, seeing how happy it made Margaery and Sansa that she could figure out the chords to Ariana Grande’s “Greedy” off the top of her head. 

But she did regret agreeing to a show on a Thursday night. She liked to get eight hours of sleep before work. Sansa and Margaery called her a grandma for it, but she didn’t care. Sleep is good! 

She hustled into the coffee shop outside of her office, blasting Bruce Springsteen in her headphones. No bad day could start with “Born To Run,” right?

The line was long but moving quickly. She wouldn’t be late. She hated being late, even though no one else in the office seemed to care. Especially on a Friday in the summer.

She looked at the line ahead of her, her eyes skimming over people in their boring office clothes. She liked to imagine what different people might order — who got blueberry syrup in their coffee and who was just hankering for a croissant. 

But shiny gold hair caught her eye, a person in front of her. It was a tall man — not as tall as her — with blonde hair that needed a trim, but still seemed to reflect all the light in the room. Her hair was blonde too, but it never glistened. 

Then she realized she recognized the golden haired Adonis — he’d been at the bar the night before. He’d carried a bag for her. He’d said his name … fuck, what was it. Jason? It was something weirdly normal, in comparison to  _ Tyrion _ .

He’d been nice and she had not returned his pleasantness, which was rude, she knew. But experience had taught her that men like  _ him _ weren’t nice to women like  _ her _ without ulterior motives. Either they thought she’d have no standards, desperate for any scraps they threw her way, and they’d get to fuck and dump her, or they just wanted to humiliate her. Sometimes it was both. So maybe there was a slight chance that — Justin? — was just being nice, but she knew better than to not trust her gut. 

She turned “Thunder Road” up on her phone and looked away from golden boy, hoping that he wouldn’t notice her. The line inched forward. She wondered idly what he was going to order. A flat white, she guessed, from his blue button up and perfectly pressed khakis. 

He went to one cashier and the woman in front of her went to the other. He chatted with the barista for a while, making her laugh. She imagined he made every laugh all the time, even whe he wasn’t funny. That’s what life was like when you were good looking. She wouldn’t know. 

He turned to exit, drink in hand, and her mouth fell into a perfect O: He got an iced coffee with whipped cream. She shut her mouth and moved up to the cashier, glad to have avoided his notice. 

“Can I get a large hazelnut iced coffee with cream?” she asked, removing her headphones and pausing her music. The girl went off to make it. 

“Actually, can you put whipped cream too?” she added. The girl added a perfect spiral to the top as she smiled. She walked back over and handed to to Brienne, who held out her card. 

“It’s taken care of,” the barista said, pushing it away. 

“What?” Brienne asked, not understanding. 

“Your friend took care of it,” she said. “The blonde one.”

Brienne felt her face heat up, right to the tips of her ears. He had seen her. James? 

What did he want with her?

— 

Jaime was sitting at the bar the next Thursday, talking to Podrick, the newest bartender. None of his cocktails were any good, and his beers had too much head, but his brother was right: He was very nice. 

“I’m sorry, Mr. Jaime,” he said after pulling a terrible beer. “Let me do that again.” Jaime reached out for the glass. 

“It’s fine,” he said, taking the beer and using his fingers to get rid of some of the foam. “Let’s not waste good beer. Also, stop calling me mister.”

“Of course mist— Jaime,” the young man said. Jaime smiled at him, genuinely. 

“We’re here!” a familiar voice rang out: Margaery. 

“Tyrion’s having this band again?” Jaime asked Podrick, who shrugged. 

“They don’t tell me anything,” he said, abashed. “Do you not like them?”

“No, it’s … complicated.”

Jaime pointedly did not turn around to look at her — to look at  _ them.  _ As soon as he’d given the barista the money for her coffee last week, he’d felt embarrassed and weird. She’d barely even spoken to him and he was buying her drinks from afar, like some weirdo stalker. If he’d known they were repeating their performance tonight, he would’ve stayed him and caught up on  _ Survivor _ , just so no one got the wrong impression.

_ But was it the wrong impression?  _ a tiny voice inside of him asked. He choked down a sip of his giant beer to ignore it. He would just sit at the bar another ten minutes, then silently leave before the theatrics got under way. Tyrion wouldn’t even have a chance to miss him. 

Alas, that plan was immediately doomed when his brother called him from across the room, standing in the corner where the band was setting up again. 

“Jaime!” he said, “Come over here and meet the Rosewolves!”

Jaime had no choice. He turned on the stool and walked over to where Margaery was adjusting her mic, the brunette was clutching Tyrion’s arm and keyboard girl was setting up her eponymous instrument. She didn’t look up, but he thought she saw her eyes flicker his way. 

“This is my brother Jaime,” Tyrion said. “You can see I got all the good looks.” Jaime laughed for his brother’s sake, but it was a joke he didn’t particularly like. The Lannister boys, so self-hating. 

Margaery was Margaery — she wore a different flower crown tonight and Jaime wondered where she got them all from — and the red head was Sansa. 

“That’s Brienne,” Sansa said, gesturing to the blonde, who was setting up an amp. She was wearing another jumpsuit, this time bright red. She finally looked up at him, her eyes big and round and blue. He gave her a little smile and she nodded and went back to her work. 

“They’re going to play every Thursday,” Tyrion said, positively exuberant. 

“Every Thursday?” Jaime and Brienne said in near unison. 

“It’s good for business,” Tyrion said to his brother. 

“And we just wanna perform,” Sansa said to Brienne, with Margaery nodding vigorously. Jaime didn’t know keyboard girl, but he could tell she was not entirely pleased by this turn of events.

But Jaime just wanted Tyrion’s place to succeed.

“We should drink to that,” Jaime said, walking over to the bar. “Podrick, a round of Shirley temples!” The young bartender smiled as he quickly made the red drinks. Tyrion, Sansa and Margaery crowded around the bar and took theirs. Brienne followed reluctantly. Jaime handed her a glass. 

“Are Shirley Temples not rock n roll enough for you?” he asked as he slid it into her hand. 

“They’re almost too rock n roll,” she replied, finally looking him in the eyes and smirking. 

“To King’s Landing’s finest indie pop!” Tyrion said as he raised his glass. Margaery and Sansa let out a whoop as their glasses clinked. Jaime tried to meet Brienne’s eyes again, but she was looking away. Alright. 

—

The band was even better this week, though the audience was smaller. They were more confident, and Margaery knew how to work a crowd, even if her vocals weren’t the strongest. They brought down the house with a rousing rendition of Selena Gomez’s “Bad Liar” at the end of their set, and Jaime found himself bopping along, too. 

Most of the small crowd cleared out quickly after the band finished, but Jaime was still nursing a beer and talking to Podrick, who’d gotten a little overwhelmed by all the people.

“You did pretty well,” he told the younger man, trying to soothe him. “And you’ll be even better tomorrow.” Pod looked like he hadn’t considered that he’d have to do it again tomorrow. Oh boy.

Someone plopped down on the stool next to Jaime. 

“Can I get a water?” she asked Podrick. Jaime turned: It was Brienne. He turned back, facing forward, but she’d noticed him.

“Hey,” she said, or mumbled, in his general direction. 

“Hey,” he mumbled back, raising his half-drunk beer to her. “Great set.”

Podrick slid her water over to her. She took a big drink, then made a face.

“This is seltzer,” she said, annoyed. “I hate seltzer.” Podrick went bright red.

“It’s his first day,” Jaime said, turning to her fully. Now  _ she _ was bright red. 

“It’s fine, I didn’t mean to —” she sputtered out and Jaime smiled. He liked riling her up. 

“Do you want a beer?” he asked.

“What?” she said, taking another sip of the accursed seltzer, then making another face.

“I’d offer to buy you any drink you want, but I’m not sure I trust Pod with the cocktail shaker yet,” he said. 

She chewed her lip again, sizing him up. Now he felt sort of hot all over his face, but he looked her right in her astonishing eyes anyway. She nodded.

“Do you have cider?” she asked Podrick.

“Ummm,” he said, looking at all the different beer taps.

“The one on the left,” Jaime said, pointing at the correct one. A gracious Pod pulled the drink and slid the glass over. At least he was good at the sliding part.

“I’m not tipping him,” Jaime mumbled and Brienne gave a little laugh before taking a sip. He felt warm in his chest. 

“Thank you for the coffee, by the way,” she said. “Last week.” 

“Oh, so that  _ was _ you,” he said, trying to sound much cooler than he felt. But at least she didn’t think it was creepy. Probably?

“I’m going to have to start binge drinking coffee on Friday mornings with this lot every Thursday night,” she said, gesturing toward Margaery, Sansa and Tyrion, whose heads were huddled conspiratorially at the end of the bar.

“What  _ is _ the backstory there?” he whispered, leaning in. Brienne moved her head closer to his.

“Your brother didn’t tell you?” she asked. He shook his head, impatient.

“Sansa and Margaery were walking home one night, and some big guys started harassing them, so they ducked in here to get away. But then the guys followed them in,” she said, then took another sip of her cider. He realized he was staring at her lips as she sipped from the glass and made himself look away.

“But Tyrion noticed something was wrong, so he got that big bartender guy — name sounds sort of like mine, kind of —”

“Bronn,” Jaime said. She nodded. 

“Bronn goes to say something to them. But the guys aren’t having it. Next thing Margaery knows, Tyrion broke a beer bottle and threatened them with it. They thought he was outside his mind, so they ran away. And then Sansa and Margaery stayed until closing and he insisted on driving them home. A lifelong bond.” Jaime laughed.

“That sounds like my brother. Risking his neck for some pretty girls,” he said. Her smile lost its shine when he said “pretty,” but she took another sip to cover it. He didn’t know what to say now, so he took a large gulp of his beer, too.

Then they sat there in awkward silence.

“Do you only do covers?” he asked after a moment. “Or do you write songs too?” She was blushing again.

“I told you, it’s not that serious of a band. Or I didn’t think it was until we booked a weekly gig,” she said.

“When did you tell me?  _ Oh _ , last week. I thought we were pretending we didn’t meet last week,” he said. She took another large gulp of her drink. She was trying to get away from him, he realized. He felt it like a pit in his stomach.

“You don’t like me,” he said. It was a statement. She said nothing. “You  _ don’t _ ,” he said again, doubling down.

“I don’t dislike you,” she grumbled. “I don’t trust you — I don’t trust  _ men like you _ .”

“Men like me?” he said, running a hand through his hair. “Men with one hand and nothing better to do than sit around in their brother’s bars?”

“Handsome men who want something from me,” she said, surprising him. She finished her drink in one large gulp. “Especially when I don’t know what it is.” 

She left money on the bar for her beer and walked away to pack up the equipment. Podrick looked at Jaime with something like … pity? in his eyes.

“Shut up,” Jaime said, putting more money on the counter. “Shut up.”


	2. And I'm a little awkward, sure

Brienne couldn’t help but look for him at the coffee shop on Friday. She told herself she was looking so she could avoid him, but a tiny voice inside her — a voice that sounded like Margaery — told her that wasn’t the whole truth.

Even as her head told her to stay far away from Jaime Lannister, some tiny part of her was hoping to see him again. But _thankfully_ she didn’t.

She got whipped cream again just to try to cheer herself up. It didn’t work.

—

“Well why did that upset you, do you think?”

Jaime had a hard time looking at his therapist, Dr. Gilly Tarly, when he was talking about his _feelings_. It made him feel uncomfortable and itchy. But he was better at it now than he’d been when he first walked into her office, his new amputation somehow the least of his problems, and, as Dr. Tarly would say, that was progress.

“I didn’t say it upset me,” he said, moving his eyes from her desk to her face. She was so kind. That’s the only way Jaime could have stuck with this therapy thing as long as he had — over two years. He never felt judged.

“It didn’t upset you to have someone tell you that you’re too handsome to trust?” Gilly asked, both warm and a little accusing. It was a great combo that always worked on him, getting him to open up. Jaime shrugged.

“I don’t even know her. It doesn’t matter. It’s her baggage. Isn’t that something you’d say — other people’s reactions to me have more to do with their stuff than my stuff?” he said, feeling smart. Gilly nodded.

“Sure,” she said. “That’s true. But think about something for a second. How many people have you ever talked about during therapy?” Jaime rolled his eyes.

“How could I possibly remember that?”

“Well I do,” she said. She counted on her fingers. “Yourself. Your brother. Your father. Your sister. Your mother. Twice, in passing, your boss. Keyboard girl is seven.”

“Brienne,” Jaime muttered. “That’s her name.” She nodded

“So maybe it’s nothing, like you said,” Dr. Tarly continued. “And you’re not upset, and she doesn’t matter. But think about if it _isn’t_ nothing. And what it would mean if you were upset and if she does matter. It’s alright to care about people. You have a big heart.”

Jaime took a long drink of water after that.

—

Jaime avoided the Red Keep the next Thursday. Tyrion blew up his phone with “Where are you?” and “Are you coming?” texts. Jaime only replied when Tyrion sent, “I’m worried.”

“Just having a night in,” he wrote back. “A little tired. I’ll see you tomorrow.” He didn’t want Tyrion to worry about him anymore. He didn’t want to burden him anymore.

He tried not to think about the bar. He put on _Bake Off_. He planned on making shortbread over the weekend.

But he _was_ only human, so he did creep on social media to find out how the show was going.

He checked Tyrion’s Instagram first, where his brother had shared a short video of the Rosewolves playing ... something loud. The sound quality was shit. Margaery was bouncing around and Sansa was shaking her hips. He could just see the top of Brienne’s head behind them.

Then he checked Margaery’s account. She apparently posted to her Story throughout the day, at least a dozen photos. He tapped tapped tapped to get through her morning and afternoon. There she was with Sansa, inside the bar, their heads close in the frame. Tap.

And there was Brienne, in a video, checking the volume on the keys. She was wearing some sort of band tee shirt, and she kept pushing her hair off her forehead, but it wouldn’t stay. Then she noticed Margaery filming and yelled at her to stop. He laughed.

Sansa’s Instagram had a new photo of the band, mid-performance. Sansa was looking right at the camera, Margaery was leaping in the air, and Brienne’s eyes were closed. He wondered what they were playing. He wondered if Brienne liked the song.

Last he went to Brienne’s account. It was private. Of course.

His finger hovered over the “Follow” button, but he shut out of the app instead. Enough.

—

Brienne had to stop buying coffee of Friday mornings. The money was going to rack up quickly if she kept using expensive caffeine to recover from her Thursdays. She should make her own pitcher of iced coffee and keep it in the fridge — she could make cold brew, even!  

Alas, that would have to wait for next week. This week, she was hurrying to the coffee shop before she headed up to her office.

She was half distracted as she walked down the block — Sansa was texting their group chat with more and more creative ways to describe her hangover.

“Maybe we need to get Tyrion to move us to Fridays,” Margaery wrote, “If SOME people are too delicate to wake up for work the morning after.” Sansa didn’t like that and sent a flurry of angry emojis.

“I’m not delicate. I’m a wolf,” she typed. Brienne was laughing as she reached for the handle of the coffee shop door, her hand touching someone else’s.

“Sorry,” she said as she looked up, pulling her hand back.

Of course it was Jaime.

“Sorry,” he echoed, looking up at her and then down at the ground. “After you,” he said, holding the door open for her. She gave him a little nod and entered the shop. He followed after her, silently joining her in line. It was long. She turned to face him.

“We missed you last night,” she said, before she could think better of it. _Did_ she miss him?

“Really?” he asked, as if he were reading her mind, like he didn’t believe her either. He gave her a self-satisfied grin.

“I mean,” she said, stumbling over her words, “That bartender, Pod, asked me if you were coming like three times. And Tyrion was worried.” That was the wrong thing to say — his face fell. Why did she feel guilty? It wasn’t her fault.

“He texted me,” Jaime mumbled.

“He loves you, it’s cute,” Brienne jumped in to say, trying to course correct. “That must be nice, having a sibling who loves you. My brother—” But that was apparently _also_ the wrong thing to say, because now he was really frowning. She tried again.

“I just meant — Tyrion is lovely, and you shouldn’t feel that bad because he didn’t miss you that much because he spent the whole night flirting with Margaery _and_ Sansa, but neither of them will talk about it so let me know if you have any inside info I can lord over them,” she rambled, uncharacteristically. She just wanted him to smile again, she realized. Even if she hated his smug little smirks.

“Move up!” a man behind them grunted. She did, and Jaime followed, now with the ghost of a smile on his face at least.

“I have no info,” he said. “Well, he did say that’s why he offered to have the band play, but I assumed his crushes were one-sided. Also I thought Margaery and Sansa…” He waved his hand around in a circle, as if he couldn’t find the word.

“Are together?” she said with a laugh, finishing his sentence. He nodded. They moved up in the line again.

“When we lived together, nothing was going on between them, I’m pretty sure,” she explained. “But I moved out … six months ago. So anything could be going on, really.”

“Why’d you move out?” Jaime asked.

“I always wanted to live alone,” she said, which was half the truth. “And Sansa and Margaery are _a lot_ , sometimes. The rose and wolf.” His eyebrows shot up.

“If they’re the rose and the wolf, which part of The Rosewolves is you? _The_?” She laughed.

“Doesn’t bother me,” she said, which was the whole truth. “I don’t need the spotlight.”

They’d reached the front of the line. Brienne was surprised to find she was disappointed. She walked to the next free cashier, and then — and she didn’t know why — she waved Jaime over. He pointed at himself, like the girl in a high school movie who can’t believe the jock is picking her. She rolled her eyes and nodded, and he came over.

“What do you want?” she said, gruffly.

“Brienne, you don’t have to —”

“What do you want?” she asked again.

“Iced coffee with vanilla,” he muttered.

“And another iced coffee with hazelnut and cream,” she told the barista, too. “And whipped cream. On both of them.”

“Thanks,” Jaime said, as the barista hurried off to make their coffees. She shrugged.

“Now we’re even,” she said, not looking at him, but she could feel his shoulders deflate beside her.

“Now we’re even,” he repeated, something hard in his voice. “Guess that’s it.” The barista returned with their coffees and Brienne swiped her card. They exited the coffee shop in silence.

“I didn’t mean it like that —” Brienne said when they hit the sidewalk.

“Then what _did_ you mean it like?” he asked, looking so silly in his fashionable business casual, with his stupidly perfect face, holding a cup of _whipped_ _cream_. “You’re the one who said you didn’t trust me, remember?”

She’d sort of hoped he’d forgotten that.

“I don’t know,” she said. “I have to go to work.” She walked left and so did he. She stopped when she realized.

“I’m not stalking you, keyboard girl, I work this way, too.” She curled her lip at “keyboard girl,” but didn’t complain. When they got to her building, she stopped at the steps. He did, too.

“This is me,” she muttered, then took a sip of her coffee before she started rambling again.

“It’s also me,” he growled back.

“Of course it is,” she said. They climbed the stairs side by side, swiped in at security, and waited for the elevator. She chewed the side of her cheek, willing herself to say nothing, not knowing what she’d even say if she did let herself open her mouth.

The elevator came. They pressed their respective buttons. She was floor 6. He was 16. She didn’t know what was up there.

The doors closed and the elevator climbed,

For one fleeting moment, she imagined what would happen if she hit the emergency stop and slammed him against the wall and got very intimate with his beard. And his perfect jaw. And his lips. Like ascene out of some other girl’s life. Margaery would do it, if she were here, just to figure out what this _thing_ was that was crackling between them.

And he’d kiss Margaery back. _Anyone_ would kiss Margaery back.

But Jaime kissing Brienne back? Impossible.

Especially when she couldn’t stop being such a dick to him.

Mercifully, they reached her floor. She raised her iced coffee to him and exited, praying she wouldn’t run into him in the elevator, or the lobby, or the coffee shop ever again.

–

But the gods were cruel. On Monday they awkwardly rode in the same elevator again in the morning, in complete silence. On Tuesday she passed by him in the lobby when she was on her way to lunch, and they shared a head nod. She missed him completely Wednesday.

And Thursday, when he rode the elevator down at the end of the day, she got on when it stopped on the sixth floor. She tried to avoid looking at him.

“How long have you worked in this building?” he asked.

“Two years,” she said. He shook his head.

“And I never saw you that whole time,” he said, mostly to himself.

“Maybe you did and you just never noticed me,” she quipped back. He shook his head and she could feel his eyes on her, looking her up and down.

“I would’ve noticed,” he said, something dark in his voice. He coughed, like he heard it too. She tried not to think about it.

They exited the elevator and walked through the lobby, their feet in step with each other.

“Are you coming tonight?” she asked as they stepped outside, the late afternoon sun momentarily blinding her.

“Well…” he said, “I don’t…”

“You should come,” she cut in. He shrugged. “Pick a song.”

“What?” he asked, turning to look at her as they walked down the stairs. It was always golden hour when she looked at him, no matter the height of the sun in the sky.

“Pick a song for us to play,” she said again, like he was stupid. But _she_ felt stupid. What was she doing?

She added, “But not something ridiculous. No ‘Free Bird,’ Margaery will be mad.”

They walked down the block.

“What’s that Spider-man song?” he said. “You know the one. It’s everywhere.” He started humming, grasping for the words. “Sunflower?”

“Sunflower,” she repeated. “Yeah, OK, we can do that. And now you have to come.”

“Are you going now?” he asked. “We could—”

“No, have to pick up the equipment, get changed, you know,” she said, a little bashful. They parted ways at the corner.

She whipped out her phone and texted Margaery and Sansa.

“We’re adding Sunflower to the set list. Post Malone, Swae Lee. It’s not hard.”

Margaery wrote back right away. “Do we know that song?”

“Why?” Sansa texted. Brienne ignored that.

“It’s not hard — just listen to it a couple times before we get to the bar. We can practice a little bit.”

“I don’t know…” Sansa wrote back.

“It’ll be very rock and roll,” Brienne added. That got her two thumbs up.

—

Jaime was planted at the bar with Tyrion when the Rosewolves arrived. Margaery was quickly upon them with hugs and kisses. Jaime had _tried_ to get info about what was going on with Tyrion and Margaery and Sansa, just so he would have something to say to Brienne, but his brother had been uncharacteristically tight-lipped.

“You’re looking handsome as ever, Jaime,” Margaery said when she hugged him. He wanted to point out that they’d met twice, but he held his tongue. He grunted his thanks and offered to buy her a beer.

“He _says_ he’ll buy you a beer,” Tyrion said, “And yet he never pays his tab. So really, I’d be buying you a beer.” Margaery laughed at that.

“Margaery,” Brienne called from across the room, where her keyboard was set up. “We have to practice.” Jaime made eye contact with her over Margaery’s shoulder, and they shared a head nod. She’d changed into a bright yellow jumpsuit. A sunflower.

“Later boys,” Margaery said, flitting over to the corner and joining Sansa and Margaery to work out some chords. Jaime wondered idly if it had to do with the special request Brienne had forced out of him.

Eventually, the bar filled up, with more people than had been there two weeks ago.

“They’re good,” Tyrion said to his brother. “People come because they’re good.” Jaime could only nod his agreement.

Mid-set, after a rousing performance of Lorde’s “Supercut,” Margaery intro’d the next song.

“Alright, we’re trying this song for the first time, by special request, so if it’s bad, blame Brienne.” A few people laughed. Jaime tried to make eye contact with Brienne, but it was too dark to catch  her baby blues.

Then Brienne started playing the first chords, her head banging. Margaery tripped over the words in the first verse, but she got into it on the chorus.

And then Brienne took the second verse, which Jaime hadn’t expected. She didn’t have a strong voice, but it was low and sweet and lovely and he could feel it in his chest. He couldn’t help but grin.

_You’re the sunflower. You’re the sunflower._

“That’s for me,” Jaime said, nudging his brother, who couldn’t hear him or didn’t understand. Jaime didn’t care. He whooped when the song ended.

They got rousing applause at the end of their set and Jaime banged his glass against the bar. The girls spread out amongst the crowd, chatting people up, and Jaime amused himself talking to Pod. Surely Brienne would come over any minute. Surely…

But she didn’t. Tyrion was talking to the Rose and the Wolf excitedly about … which Harry Potter houses they were in? Everyone thought they were a Slytherin and everyone disagreed that the other ones were.

Jaime had recently realized he was a Hufflepuff after a lifetime of thinking he was also a snake, not that anyone had asked him.

He noticed Brienne was in the corner, taking apart their equipment.

“Pod,” he said, calling the bartender over. “Give me two of those ciders.” The younger man obliged. Jaime cradled one in his elbow and carried the other in his left hand, got up, and walked over to Brienne. She didn’t look up.

“Hey,” he said, holding out the glass. “I got you a cider.”

“Thanks,” she mumbled, taking it from his hand and setting it down right away. He took a long sip from his, watching her.

“I don’t get you, keyboard girl,” he said.

“That’s not my name,” she replied, unplugging the amps and sitting on the floor.

“Sometimes I think you want to be friends, and sometimes I think you hate my guts,” he continued, like he hadn’t heard her. “Which is it?”

She stopped what she was doing.

“I don’t hate your guts,” she said.

“So you want to be friends?” he asked. But she shook her head. “I didn’t ask you to play a song for me. I didn’t ask you to —”

“I don’t know what I want,” she said, standing up tall. She looked down at him, fierce and vulnerable at the same time. “I know I shouldn’t trust you.”

“You keep saying that,” he said, and she put up a hand to stop him.

“I know what men like you want from women like me,” she replied. Jaime pursed his lips.

“Men like me,” he repeated. She nodded.

“Stupidly handsome men who think they’re entitled to everything.” He preened at that, _stupidly handsome_ , despite himself, running a hand through his hair. She rolled her eyes.

“One blind date left the moment he saw me. Two guys tried to fuck me to win a bet.” Jaime flinched. “One guy was closeted and needed a cover. Countless guys have only talked to me to get close to _them_ ,” she said, gesturing toward Sansa and Margaery, who were missing on the drama in the corner. “Which one are you?”

He bit his lip. He should just walk away. Let her be miserable alone.

"Then why don't you just stay away from me?" he said instead. "I didn't tell you to play a song for me." She just shook her head.'

"I don't know what I want," she repeated.

“We could be friends,” he offered.

“Friends?” she said, raising an eyebrow. “Why?”

“I don’t have that many friends,” he said, honestly.

“So you’re desperate,” she said, going back to her amps, wrapping the cords.

“No, I didn’t mean it like that,” he said.

“Don’t you think our continued inability to say what we mean might hinder any potential friendship?” she asked, sliding her keyboard into its case.

“Not if we promise to always assume the other has the best intentions,” he said. “That’s what friendship is.”

She finally took a sip of her cider. “I thought you don’t have any friends.”

“I don’t have _many_ friends,” he corrected. “I have Tyrion. And Pod, kind of. And Bronn, sort of. And now you” She laughed.

“You have four friends,” she said. He smiled when he realized she’d counted herself.

“Really three. Count Pod and Bronn as half each.”

“So you _are_ desperate,” she said, but she was grinning.

“A little,” he said. “But I’d still pick you even if I had a hundred friends.” She bit her lip again, her thinking face, he realized. He wanted her to say yes _so badly_.

“Fine,” she said, raising her glass of cider. “We can try it out. Friends.”

He looked into her stupidly beautiful eyes as their glasses clinked.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey thanks for reading this! When I was thinking of which ASOIAF/GOT character would be most likely to be a great therapist, especially one who would understand Jaime's ~issues~, Gilly felt like the obvious answer. We'll be seeing more of therapist!Gilly in three and four, and you'll find out what happened with Cersei next installment. Also, this might be 5 chapters instead of 4? who can say! 
> 
> thanks for the comments and kudos as always <3


	3. And no one ever called me smooth

On Friday morning, when Brienne got to the coffee shop — having of course forgotten to put coffee in her fridge — Jaime was already outside, waiting, with two coffees and two muffins. 

“Thank the gods,” he said, thrusting the tray of coffee into her hand. “I was just starting to think I missed you.” She rolled her eyes. “Some of us like to get to work on time,” he added when he saw her do it. 

“We’re not late,” she said, taking her drink from the tray and sipping it. Hazelnut. “It’s 8:30.”

“Yeah well...” he said, because he knew he didn’t have a response. “What do you do on the sixth floor anyway?”

She took a long sip from her coffee. She was enjoying making him wait. 

“It’s a non-profit that teaches kids how to code,” she said.

“That’s cool!” he said, genuinely enthused, but she shook her head. 

“Some rich tech asshole started it after his company got busted for prejudiced hiring practices. We don’t actually do that much.”

“At least you get to hang out with kids?” he said, trying to find the bright side, which she did sort of appreciate. Sort of. 

“I do social media,” she said. “So nope. Mostly I schedule tweets and play around on the Internet. Don’t tell my boss.”

“You do social media?” he said, something disbelieving in his voice. 

“Does that surprise you?” she asked.

“Well, yes,” he admitted. “Your Instagram is private...”

“Did you try to stalk me?” she said, feigning shock. “I don’t know that I want to be friends with my  _ stalker.”  _ Was he blushing?

“You already agreed to be friends, you can’t back out now,” he said as they entered the lobby. He said hi to someone as they waited for the elevator, but he didn’t take his attention off her. 

“What do you do on the 16th floor?” she asked as they boarded the cart. He grinned, a little sinister. 

“I’ll tell you at lunch,” he said. 

“What?” she asked, shaking her head. 

“Lunch,” he said, nonchalant. “Social media strategists get lunch breaks, don’t they?”

They arrived at her floor. She was still gaping at him as she got off. He saluted her with his coffee as the doors closed. 

When she got to her desk and checked Instagram, she had a pending follow request. @jaime.lannister. She accepted it. 

A moment later she had a message. 

“What time do you take lunch?”

She rolled her eyes. He sent another one before she could reply. 

“I like 1:30, 2 even. Breaks up the day.”

And another one. 

“But whatever you want.” Now she was smiling. 

“1:30. Lobby.”

“See you then, keyboard girl.”

She went back to his profile, expecting to see dozens of thirst traps, tasteful selfies, and glamorous vacation photos. 

But she didn’t find them. Some of the shots were portraits — of a smiling Tyrion, of a scowling Bronn. He got nice photos of the Red Keep and its patrons. They showed what was so nice about the place. He took photos of flowers and trees and the sunrise — but they all seemed more expert than the typical Instagram #nofilter fodder. She wondered if he took photos on the 16th floor. 

There was just one photo of him, from when he and his brother were teenagers, which he’d posted for Tyrion’s birthday. They were both smiling wide. She double tapped it without thinking. Jaime was pleased when he saw the notification. Her own feed was barren — mostly shots of Margaery and Sansa or the beach. Not a single photo of her face.

During lunch — Mexican from Brienne’s favorite truck, which Jaime had never tried — she found out her instincts were correct. On the 16th floor was a design firm, and Jaime did photography and some graphic design work. 

“I should do a photo shoot with The Rosewolves,” he suggested as they sat at a tiny metal table outside their building. The small chairs were uncomfortable for two tall people, but it was nice to be in the sun. Brienne usually ate at her desk. 

“Why?” she asked, her hackles immediately raised.

“I thought we were giving each other the benefit of the doubt,” he said, noticing how tense she was. He was right.

Still, she said, “We don’t need photos, it’s not —“

“It’s not a serious band, I know, you’ve said,” he interrupted. “But one day you’ll want to tell your grandkids you were in a band. Won’t you want a cool photo to show them?”

She rolled her eyes but didn’t argue. 

“Just think about it,” he said before biting into his quesadilla. 

“So how often do you go to the Red Keep?” she asked, putting the spotlight on him.

“Well,” he said, counting, “It’s open six days a week. Tyrion is there five, five and a half. So I stop by … on average, four and a half.”

“No wonder he’s your only friend,” she teased. 

“Low blow, keyboard girl.”

“Stop calling me that,” she said, but he shook his head. “How long has he owned the bar? How does a sober guy even open a bar anyway?” Jaime took a deep breath. “Sorry,” she said, “If you don’t wanna —”

“No, stop apologizing,” he said. “I just feel bad for making the conversation dark.” 

“I mean, I asked about your brother’s sobriety…”

“Stop,” he said again, goofily dragging out the sound of the O. “OK. Our father died four years ago, just after Tyrion got sober. We all got big windfalls. Tyrion had always wanted to open a bar — something about bars as a public space and making a bar where it’s safe to not drink so that sober people don’t miss out on community. If you ask him about it, he’s a lot more eloquent, but that’s the gist.” He finished his quesadilla.

“I’m sorry about your father,” she said, picking at her burrito bowl. “Mine died...13 months ago.”

“I’m sorry about  _ your _ father,” he replied. “Mine was a fucking menace. I know you’re not supposed to speak ill of the dead, but I’m at the point where I can’t pretend he was something he wasn’t.” She nodded, finishing her lunch. What a weird conversation.

As they walked back in the building, Brienne asked, “So you guys have another sibling?” Jaime stopped walking and turned to look at her, puzzled. “You said ‘ _ We all _ got big windfalls,’ so I thought…” He bit his lip, annoyed with himself.

“Our sister,” he mumbled. “Cersei.” He didn’t say anything else, and something in his tone told her not to ask any more. 

But he must have realized he got dark and stormy, because he smiled at her in the elevator.  

“We should do this again,” he said. “Tuesday, maybe.”

They did not have to wait for Tuesday to see each other again.

When she thought about it later, it was almost disturbing how easily Jaime Lannister slipped into Brienne’s life. Or maybe she slipped into his. Maybe their lives were already so close together that they just needed a push to cross the streams.

On Saturday morning, she was finishing up her run in her favorite park when she suddenly recognized the golden haired man doing some pre-run stretches. She paused her music. 

“Lannister,” she yelled. He turned and lit up when he saw her.

“Are you following me, keyboard girl?” She rolled her eyes. 

“Since I’m finishing my run and you just got here, it feels like you’re following me.”

“Oh,” he said, with … was that disappointment in his voice?

“Come on,” she said, putting her headphones in her pocket. “Your warm up can be my cool down.” 

Of course, that didn’t go the way she planned, because nothing with Jaime Lannister ever went the way she planned. 

After 15 minutes of slowly jogging, he yelled, “First one to the water fountain!” and started sprinting. But her legs were longer and she was warmed up and she beat him easily.

“First one to that bench,” she said between gasps of breath, already with a head start.

“That’s cheating!” he yelled from behind her and she laughed as she beat him again. She waited for him to reach her.

“First one to...that playground,” he said and took off.  _ What playground? _ she wondered, until she saw him run off the path and over a hill. She still beat him on the downhill.

They went on like that for the better part of an hour, until she was so tired he beat her three times in a row (his only victories).

“It’s not fair,” she said as she caught up to him at their latest benchmark, the basketball courts. “I ran five miles before you got here!”

“Wow, someone is  _ competitive _ ,” he teased.

“You’re the one who started the races!” she yelled back, gasping for air. She sat down on a patch of grass and stretched her legs. She couldn’t remember the last time she was so sweaty. Or the last time she’d enjoyed her run so much. He sat next to her and stretched his legs, too.

“Do you like breakfast?” he asked.

“Are there people who don’t like breakfast?” 

So that turned into part of their routine — meeting at the park on Saturday mornings and running together. Few days were as competitive as that first one, but Jaime ended every one with a race. And she beat him almost every time, which he used as an excuse to buy her breakfast. 

Otherwise, they got coffee on Fridays, and lunch. And they usually got lunch on Tuesdays, but sometimes it got bumped to Wednesdays, and if a Monday was particularly heinous he demanded they grab a midday snack together. And then they hung out on Thursdays after the band performed, and then she started coming to the bar on Tuesday nights sometimes too, when it was quiet and Tyrion and Pod wanted to test their new mocktails on them.

And mostly they kept things light. She told him about meeting Margaery and Sansa in college, about how Sansa made all those jumpsuits he liked so much. She learned to play piano as a little girl, she used to dream of being a pop star one day. He told her about how he’d wanted to be a footballer, but he wasn’t fast enough and he was a terrible teamplayer. He shot photos of weddings in college to make some extra money on the side, even though he didn’t need it, just to prove he was good enough. He studied finance, because his father wanted him to, and his dyslexia and general hatred of numbers made it a nightmare.

But sometimes the real dark things slipped in, too. Both their mothers had died when they were way too young. Brienne had lost a brother, too. Jaime wouldn’t tell her anything about his sister — not yet — and she didn’t push. 

“Do I have to tell her?” he asked Dr. Gilly one afternoon. 

“No,” she said. “You don’t have to tell anyone anything you don’t want to.”

“Why do I feel like there’s a big ‘but’ coming?” he asked, putting his head in his hand. She smiled at him.

“Because you’re very good at therapy,” she said. “But really, at some point, that’s what friendship is. Sharing the messy parts of yourself.”

“Messy parts,” he said, with a bitter little laugh. “You make it sound so … adorable. ‘I’m always late’ is a messy part of yourself. ‘My sister tried to kill me because I stopped having sex with her’ is … something else.”

“You’re right,” she said. “It’s a lot. So you have to decide if she’s someone you can trust.”

“She is,” he said immediately. Even when they’d just met, when he couldn’t form a coherent sentence around her, some part of him knew he could trust her.

“Then why don’t you want to tell her?”

They sat in silence for a long time. This was Jaime’s least favorite part of therapy: when she just waited for him to find his fucking words.

“I’m terrible,” he said at last. “How do you tell someone you lo- like that you’re … bad.” She shook her head.

“Jaime, bad things happened to you. That doesn’t make you bad. You know this.” He shook his head.

“Dr. Tarly, we’ve been at this for almost three years,” he said. “And rationally, I believe it. That I’m good. Or at least I’m not  _ tainted _ . That what matters is the future, and I  _ can be _ good. But some days I can’t outrun the voices in my head. The ones that tell me I’m rotten and bad and disgusting, that I’m tricking a good person into liking me, that I should’ve died in that car after all. After three years, shouldn’t that voice be gone?”

She handed him a box of tissues. He hadn’t even realized he was crying.

“Jaime,” she said, really tenderly. It still surprised him when someone was kind to him, after all this time. “You showed up in my office after 28 years of abuse and neglect and grief. I wish I could tell you there’s a formula, that every year of bad stuff takes 2 months of therapy to get over. But it just takes time and work. And I can’t tell you how much.”

He nodded. He knew this.

“But I can tell you,” she continued, “That you are a different person than the one who walked in here three years ago. Three years ago, you wouldn’t have considered telling  _ anyone _ about what happened to you, let alone someone you lo- like.” She scrunched her nose. He knew she knew. He appreciated that she didn’t say it.

—

One Thursday night after the band had performed — Margaery went overboard with her Ariana Grande impression, even though she definitely lacked the range — Jaime revealed that he’d worked late and hadn’t had the time to eat before coming to see them.

“Oh my favorite noodle place is around here, come on,” Brienne said, dragging him by the arm out of the bar and to a tiny place he’d never noticed. She ushered him to a table and ordered noodles for both of them, carrying them back to the table and placing them in front of him. He almost laughed as she watched him, so intent. 

“Stop looking at me like that!” he said as he spun them around the fork.

“Like what?” she said, blushing and looking down at her own plate.

“Like if I don’t like these noodles our friendship is over!”

“It might be,” she said. He smiled and finally bit into them.

“OK,” he said. “I get it. These are perfect noodles. Only a demon would disagree.”

They started chatting about the Sansa/Margaery/Tyrion situation, which all three parties still refused to say a single word about. Jaime was trying to explain his theory.

“Maybe they’re all dating each other!”

“Like a throuple?” she asked. 

“A what-le?”

“A throuple!” she said, slurping noodles. “It’s a couple with three people.” He considered it.

“That does seem like something my brother would do… or at least try.”

She looked down at the table. Jaime was barely eating.

“You don’t like them?” she asked, trying to keep the hurt from her voice. He looked up at her, his eyes so big.

“I do,” he said, his voice rough and quiet. “It’s delicious, I told you.”

“But you’re not eating...” she said, hoping she wasn’t being too invasive. He picked up his fork, then held it, as if weighing it in his hand, as if weighing her in his eyes.

“Do me a favor,” he said, still soft. “Try eating it with your left hand.”

Pushing her questions aside, she obeyed. It took her a moment to get the noodles on her fork, but she succeeded and put them in her mouth. Something felt amiss. She raised an eyebrow.

“Right,” he said off her look. “I can do basically everything with my left hand now, no problem. Praises to my occupational therapist. But sometimes it doesn’t feel … correct. Using a fork or a toothbrush, those are the two big ones. Some days it feels like I’m stabbing my mouth.”

She frowned at him, just a little. He hoped she wasn’t pitying him. He’d never told anyone about the mouth thing before. No one else had ever noticed.

All of a sudden she stood and walked back over to the cash register. She was talking to the cashier, but he couldn’t tell about what. He pretended to play with his noodles instead of watching her.

She sat back down, placing a plate of fried dumplings in between them. She picked one up with her fingers, dipped it in the soy sauce, and popped it into her mouth. Then she went back to slurping her noodles. 

He smiled to himself as he popped a dumpling in his mouth. It was  _ so good _ . She was so good. How had he lucked into this?

Later he walked her home as thanks for the food. Fall was teasing them as a cool breeze broke the late summer heat. They’d fallen into a companionable silence, but he knew he had to break it.

“Brienne,” he said, his voice soft and low. “I’m going to tell you how I lost my hand, OK?”

“Yeah,” she said. He looped his arm through hers.

“It was a car accident,” he said like he practiced it. “The car flew off the highway and we hit a tree. My hand was crushed against the door.” She gripped his arm tighter, but she said nothing still. 

“The doctors said if someone had found us right away, they might have been able to save it, but we were on some back road in the westerlands. No one found us for an hour.” She let a tiny gasp slip from her lips. “I know. It felt like … days. Waiting. But I passed out eventually and I woke up in the hospital with one hand.”

They walked a little further in silence.

“Were you driving?” she asked, softly. Another woman whose tenderness he didn’t deserve. But he shook that thought away. 

“No,” he said. She waited. “My sister was.” Brienne nodded, as if that made sense. But he knew it didn’t.

“Is she…”

“No,” he said. “She was fine. Concussed, I think.” More silence. They were almost at her apartment, he knew. 

“I lied,” he said, his voice shaking just a little. “I said it was an accident. It wasn’t.” She gasped again, even smaller this time. He more felt it than heard it.

“She did it on purpose,” she said, and he was glad she was the one who did. It was cowardly, he knew. “Why?”

They were at her building. He stopped on the steps. 

“I promise I’ll tell you eventually, but tonight I can’t.” He looked away from her. He’d been brave, but he could only go so far.

“You don’t have to promise me,” she said, shaking her head. “You don’t have to tell me.”

“I know.” He took a breath. “But I promise I will. And I always keep my promises.”

They stared at each other. He wanted to look away, but he held firm. He wanted to ask what the look in her eyes meant, but he was too scared to find out the answer. He’d used all of tonight’s bravery. And then she leaned in and hugged him.

He almost cried. When was the last time someone had just  _ hugged him _ because they wanted to? Without agenda? She was so strong and soft and solid. She smelled like chili oil and sweat. He hugged her back.

She let go and walked up the stairs.

“Good night Jaime,” she said, opening the door and turning back to wave goodbye.

“Good night keyboard girl,” he said. She rolled her eyes so dramatically he had to laugh.

On Friday morning, she was waiting outside the coffee shop, with muffins and coffees. 

“I thought it was a whipped cream kind of day,” she said, handing him his. It was worth it just to see his smile.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> originally this was gonna be a longer chapter but i wanted to post an update and also it would've had too many sad things, i think. so you're getting at least five chapters now, but i could see six... thanks as always for the kudos and reviews, they honestly make my day!


	4. Smitten's a bad look on me

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ok i updated the rating because i think if you say "fuck" and talk about incest and attempted murder this much, you can't tag the fic as teen. 
> 
> thank you for your patience and thank you for still reading this fic. this chapter is the ~heaviest~ i think, but that's because such sweet sweet sweet fluff awaits us, I promise! and i updated the chapter count because i have an idea for an epilogue. ok. on to the good stuff.

The Rosewolves’ audience had gradually grown every week, which Brienne did her best to not pay attention to. When Margaery or Sansa mentioned it, she tried to change the subject, and if they noticed her evasion tactics, they said nothing. 

One conversation topic she was increasingly struggling to get them away from, though, was Jaime Lannister. They were rehearsing on Monday night at Sansa and Margaery’s apartment, which used to be  _ their _ apartment. Brienne mentioned that Jaime thought Sansa’s guitar solo on Taylor Swift’s “Delicate” had been unexpectedly sweet.

“You spend a lot of time talking to that Jaime Lannister,” Margaery said, tuning her bass. She always called him his full name, like he was more an idea than a person. Brienne gave a noncommittal shrug.

“He’s so dishy,” Sansa said, a little wistfully. Margaery nodded her agreement. 

“And yet I thought you both had your eyes set on Tyrion,” Brienne said and waited to see if the pair would give anything away.

“I heard you go running together every weekend,” Margaery said, as if her friend hadn’t spoken.

“I saw them at breakfast two Saturdays ago,” Sansa added. 

“No you didn’t,” Brienne said, curt. 

“You didn’t see me, but I saw you. You looked so cozy with your pancakes and your  _ friend _ , I didn’t want to interrupt,” she replied with a shrug. Brienne could feel her cheeks getting hot. She distracted herself with her keyboard. 

Margaery sighed dramatically. “I think you’re cute together.”

“There’s no  _ together _ ,” Brienne said, starting to mash on her keys, just to make noise. “We’re friends. We go on runs and get lunch. It’s not … a thing.”

Margaery was appalled. “You’re telling me you never look into those emerald eyes and just want to kiss him?”

“No one’s eyes are  _ emerald _ ,” Brienne said. “That would be terrifying. Too dark. Can we practice now?”

They did, but Brienne was distracted by Sansa and Margaery’s comments. Because if she were being honest with herself — and she would never, ever,  _ ever _ , say it aloud — sometimes she did look at Jaime and just wanted to kiss him. She wanted to back him against a wall and become intimate acquaintances with his stupidly perfect beard, his jaw, his cheek, his nose. Just once, just to know what it would feel like. In her weaker moments she thought about him lifting her hand and kissing her wrist, tickling her just above her pulse…

But she couldn’t live in that part of her brain. She  _ couldn’t. _ It would be … unbearable. 

They were friends. He wanted to be friends. They spent time together, they relied on each other, they supported each other, but that didn’t mean … anything.

_ Besides,  _ she would say to her friends if she wasn’t already sure what their response would be, someone like  _ him _ with someone like  _ her _ was so outside the laws of the universe as to be downright laughable. Margaery and Sansa would say she was selling herself short, but it wasn’t that. She was pretty confident that she’d find  _ someone _ , one day, who wanted to build a life with her. Terrible people found partners all the time, so why shouldn’t she find someone  _ fine _ to build something with? But that hypothetical man didn’t look like Jaime fucking Lannister. Girls like her didn’t get guys like him, which was  _ fine _ . 

On Thursday, after their set, Jaime, Sansa and Brienne were chatting at the bar. Jaime wanted to hear more about how Sansa designed clothes, including Brienne’s now-trademark jumpsuits. Tonight’s was maroon, and she’d unzipped the top a little, at Sansa’s suggestion, to show off her long neck, collarbone, and non-existent cleavage. He couldn’t keep his eyes from traveling down, but Brienne didn’t notice. After Sansa and Margaery’s earlier teasing, she was trying to seem as uninterested in him as possible, which meant that she was always looking away and trying not to blush.

“I really try to think about who’s going to be wearing the designs. Like with Brienne,” Sansa said, “I knew she likes more adrogynous cuts, and she wants to be comfortable, but I also knew her body is incredible and I wanted to show it off, and I wanted it to be fun. And these coverall-inspired jumpsuits ended up covering all the bases. The colors are fun, they’re super comfy, but I can still tailor them super close to her body. And if you pull down the zipper…”

And then, to Brienne’s horror, Sansa did just that, revealing  _ more _ cleavage and a peek of her bra.

“Sansa!” she yelped, snatching the zipper back and moving it up a little. 

“I’m just saying,” Sansa said, grinning at Brienne and Jaime, who were both bright red, “It’s  _ versatile _ .”

“It reminds me of like …. Bruce Springsteen,” Jaime said, trying to not think about what laid below the zipper. “But just the happy songs.” Sansa found the comparison apt.

Then Margaery came thundering over from where she’d been chatting with a woman they didn’t recognize.

“Guess what Rosewolves? We are going to be  _ famous. _ ”

This was an extreme exaggeration. The girl they’d been talking to was a writer who wanted to write a little article about them in  _ KL Weekly _ , one of those free newspapers they gave out on street corners. They just needed to talk to her for half an hour and send her photos. Jaime perked up at that.

“I’ve been telling Brienne how much I want to shoot you guys,” he said, taking out his phone to consult his calendar. 

“Really,” Margaery said, her voice loaded with  _ something. _ “She never shared that with us.”

Margaery, Sansa and Jaime planned it all, over Brienne’s objections. Jaime would come by Sansa and Margaery’s on Sunday afternoon to get photos of them rehearsing and hanging around. Brienne was to arrive promptly Sunday morning for makeup and wardrobe.

Jaime tried to soothe her during both their lunch on Friday and their run on Saturday.

“It’ll be fun,” he said. “Don’t you trust me to take good photos?”

“It’s not you I don’t trust,” she said. “I just … my  _ face. _ ” She didn’t continue. He stopped running.

“Your face? You don’t trust your face?” He really didn’t understand. She stopped and waited for him to walk over to her. They started running again.

She didn’t want to tell him. She didn’t want him to pity her. But if he’d trusted her with his stuff, then she had to trust him with hers, too.

She took a deep breath. “In college … well  _ always, _ men weren’t exactly throwing themselves at me. Obviously.”

“Why is that  _ obvious _ ?” he asked, but she waved him off.

“And then junior year … I just noticed that some guys in my major started being flirty with me. Chatting me up, whatever. And one guy kept asking me out to coffee, to ‘go over our notes,’ but we’d just hang out and it was nice. We got drinks, we studied together, I thought…”

Fuck she was not going to cry over something that happened seven years ago. Not now. She knew Jaime was listening, but she couldn’t bring herself to look at him. She sped up a little, and he kept matching her, stride for stride.

“So then one day he invited me over to his apartment, to watch a movie, he said, and I was all excited, like an idiot.”

“Not an idiot,” Jaime chimed in, even though he didn’t know the rest of the story. 

“Sure,” she said. “Thankfully, one of his roommates messaged me before I got there. It turned out that Hunter — that was his name — and some other guys in my major had a bet about who could screw ‘Brienne The Beast’ first. He was thinking of filming it to prove he won.” 

“Fuck,” was all Jaime said. 

“Yep.” She popped the p. “I showed up anyway, screamed my head off, threw his stuff around. Honestly, I was lucky no one called campus police.” 

They jogged in silence for a bit.

“So what I’m trying to say is,” Brienne said, eventually, “I trust you to take the best photos of me you can, but I still don’t think they’ll be very good, especially when I’m standing next to two of the prettiest girls in the world.”

“Brienne,” he started, but she shook him off. 

“Race you to the basketball courts,” she said. The basketball courts were not close. But she took off and he could only follow. She smoked him. By the time he got there, she was sitting on the ground, catching her breath, her back to him. He sat next to her and stretched his legs, giving her space. She laid back completely and closed her eyes.

“Fuck,” she said. 

He looked down at her. Logically, he knew she was upset, but she looked almost angelic. She was beautiful, really. Not the way Sansa and Margaery were, like a delicate flower, but in her own way. The way that had made him notice her all those months ago when all he had to go on was a blurry Instagram photo. She was striking, like an Amazon. He wanted to count all her freckles. He wanted to trace her skin. He wanted to look at her forever. He just wished he could make her see herself the way he did. 

Then he had an idea. He slipped his phone out of his pocket, as quietly as possible. He opened the camera and looked at her through it, lying in a pocket of sun. He scooted back on his butt and then rose on to his knees. He started snapping away, trying to get the way the light hit her cheek, her eyelids. 

“What are you doing?” she said, her voice dry, after a few minutes. 

“Do you trust me?” he asked, still snapping. She exhaled.

“Yes.”

He smiled to himself.

“Look here,” he said, sitting back down next to her. She sat up and opened her eyes, looking down at his phone.

“Jaime, you didn’t,” she whined, but then she actually looked.

She couldn’t deny that the photos were striking. She looked … different. Usually in photos she seemed uncomfortable or gawky or sweaty or ugly. But in Jaime’s hands she looked … not beautiful, but not bad. 

“OK,” she said, finally.

“I told you. It’ll be fine.” He kissed her temple, lightning quick, then stood up and offered his hand. She took it.

Over breakfast, she asked him the question she’d wanted to know all those months. 

“How come you don’t have any friends?”

“I have friends!” he said, like a reflex. “You and Tyrion — Pod has really warmed up to me. And I had that nice chat with Sansa, we could be friends soon.”

“When you said you wanted to be friends, you said you didn’t have any,” she said, ignoring his dumb count. “So I assumed you were … not the best at friendship?” She winced — it sounded harsh. “But what I mean is, you’re actually an incredible friend. So why don’t you have any?”

“Incredible?” he said with a little smirk. “Do go on.”

“Jaime,” she said, pretending to be annoyed. 

He contemplated a piece of bacon like it contained the secrets of the universe. Then, matter of factly: “My ex was abusive. And she did a really good job isolating me from the people around me — or convincing me to do it myself.”

Brienne nodded. “That sucks.”

“Yeah well,” he said, “Now you get to benefit from my  _ incredible _ friendship.” She threw sugar packets at him until the waitress shot them a  _ deadly _ look and they both collapsed into a fit of laughter.

—

Despite herself, Brienne had a good time at the photo shoot. Sansa presented her with a new outfit when she arrived. The top was like a short sleeve jumpsuit, but it ended in shorts instead of pants.   
“It’ll be perfect for your legs,” Sansa said, before she could complain. “And you know how good you look in royal blue.” Before she could argue, Margaery had her in a chair, swooping back her hair with some sort of pomade and applying glitter to her face. When she felt twitchy, she thought of the photos Jaime had taken of her the day before. It would be fine. 

Margaery eventually declared her done and shooed her from the chair so she could curl her own hair, so Brienne snuck off to the bathroom to see the damage.

But looking in the mirror, she looked  _ cool _ . She didn’t actually look like she was wearing that much makeup and the silver glitter brought out her eyes. And she might ask Margaery what product she had used to get hair to look like this, like it was purposefully ruffled in a “I just had sex” sort of way, instead of haphazardly ruffled in a “I don’t really know what to do with this” sort of way.

She did feel sort of embarrassed about it, though, when Jaime showed up an hour later. She felt his eyes pass over her face, her romper, her legs.

“I like the glitter” was all he said, with a little smirk.

“Do you want some?” she asked, walking over to wear Margaery had left her makeup out. She grabbed the little jar. 

“Obviously,” he said as he placed his camera bag down. She walked back over to him. 

“Close your eyes,” she said. He gazed up at her for her moment, an inexplicable look on his face, and then he obeyed. She opened the jar and smeared some glitter on her thumb. Gingerly, she rubbed it on his right eyelid, then his left. As he opened his eyes again, she dabbed a little on his nose. 

“Hey!” he said, trying to rub it off. 

“You’ll just spread it!” Margaery yelled from the other side of the room. 

“You’ll be finding glitter in your beard for months,” Sansa added. 

Then they got down to business. 

Brienne has sort of expected that they’d just take staged photos, but Jaime thought that was a bad idea. Instead, as he got the girls to move around the furniture a little and let more light into the room, he explained that he just wanted to take candids of them practicing. And then if he didn’t like what he got, he might pose them for some shots.

“But let’s get comfortable first,” he said, setting up his tripod. Brienne thought he might have winked at her, but he might have had something in his eye. 

So they practiced. Jaime knew Brienne was musically talented, but seeing her like this really drove the point home. Margaery might be the front woman, the spokesperson, but Brienne was actually in charge, because she knew what she was doing. She could play guitar and bass, at least enough to help the other two out when they got stuck. She had all sorts of genius ideas about how they should arrange the music. Margaery had a stronger voice, sure, but Jaime found he liked Brienne’s better — but maybe he just liked Brienne better. He was in awe and had to keep reminding himself that he couldn’t just take photos of her. 

Brienne, meanwhile, found that she was eventually able to relax and not think about Jaime, snapping away. She trusted him, which felt absurd when she looked at it, but she really did. 

They ran through some songs they were considering for an all boy band-themed set — Jaime wanted to know why they didn’t include a Take That song — and then Brienne tried to wrap it up. 

“Wait,” Sansa said. “Didn’t you say you had an original song you were working on?” Brienne blushed immediately, and Sansa realized she’d stepped her foot in it. Obviously she didn’t want to play it while Jaime was there. “Oh, I’m sorry, I —” Her eyes flashed to Jaime and Brienne blushed deeper. But now she knew she had to do it.

“It’s fine, I’ll play it,” she said, and she tried not to notice Jaime’s smile. Why did he have to be so handsome?

“It doesn’t have any words yet,” she added. “But it should sort of sound like this.”

And then she played. It was peppy and fun and a little sultry. It reminded Jaime of the feeling of anticipation when you’re sitting down for a movie you know you’re gonna love and you’re about to take the first sip of Diet Coke.

“And then this part would sound like this, I think,” Brienne said, and she started singing “la la la” over the music. 

“And then you guys could come in here,” she said. “And like maybe there’s a hand clap part? Still thinking about it.”

After a couple more la’s she finished. Jaime wished he had two hands so he could clap. She was  _ so good _ . 

“So I’m still figured out what it’s about,” she said, running a hand in her hair and looking between the three of them.

“I think it sounds like it’s about love,” Sansa said, a little dreamy.

“No,” Margaery said. “It sounds like it’s about a  _ crush _ .” She gave Brienne a pointed look that she did her best to ignore. It was one thing for them to tease her about Jaime, but another thing when he was  _ standing in the room with him. _

“It’s really good,” Jaime said, so genuine she had to look at him. “You’re really good — you’re all so good.” She smiled at him and he smiled back and they both missed the look that passed between Margaery and Sansa.

Then the doorbell rang. 

“Oh perfect,” Margaery said as she went to answer it. “I figured we deserved pizza after working so hard.” 

So they all laid around the living room eating pizza. Sansa and Margaery were on the loveseat, Sansa’ feet in Margaery’s lap. Brienne sat on the floor below them, her back against the couch. And Jaime curled up in a chair on the side, taking a photo here and there when no one was paying too much attention.

They told him the story of the first “gig” they ever played, which was Sansa’s sister’s boyfriend’s house party. They got crammed into the basement and no one paid them any intention until Margaery, in what she called “a fit of slutty inspiration,” took her top off. Then  _ everyone _ was paying attention. Gendry did not ask them to perform there again.

“Brienne said she’d quit if I took it off again,” Margaery said. “Though she never said anything about starting a show topless…”

Margaery and Sansa also asked Jaime lots of questions, and he couldn’t help but feel like they were interviewing him to make sure he was OK to let Brienne spend time with. It made him like them more. Brienne deserved people who cared about her, who would quiz someone before he got too close. 

Once the pizza was gone, he got them each to pose against a blank wall for some quick headshots, but then he ran out of excuses to linger. 

“This was really fun,” he said before he left. And he meant it — he liked them all so much, even if he liked one of them a little bit more. Well, a lot more.

When he was gone, Sansa and Margaery hit Brienne with knowing looks, which she refused to acknowledge. And when she did suggest, the next day, that they add Take That’s “Shine” to their boy band set that week, they kept their teasing light.

But Sansa and Margaery were absolutely speechless when they opened the email from Jaime with the photos he’d taken of them. All three of them looked incredible — the Instagram likes would pour in. But Brienne looked....

“I hope she lets me be the maid of honor when they get married,” Sansa said to Margaery as they clicked through them. Margaery shrugged.

“Makes sense,” she said. “I’ll be the flower girl.”

—

Jaime was grinning ear to ear when they finished their set on Thursday. 

“I told you Take That would be a hit,” he said as Brienne sat next to him at the bar. He’d already gotten her a cider. 

“I think they liked One Direction more though,” she said, gesturing to the crowd that was still milling around. 

“I like that song,” he said, and then, incredibly, he started singing it. “Everybody wanna steal my girl. Everybody wanna take her heart away. A couple mill — what?” She was gaping at him, her mouth completely open. 

She liked his voice. It was low and rough. It  _ did something _ to her. 

“Didn’t know you were a Directioner,” she said. 

“Wait until you see my Harry tattoo,” he said and she shoved his shoulder. 

“You do  _ not _ have a Harry Styles tattoo.”

“Prove it,” he said, wiggling his eyebrows and she was cracking up. Tyrion plopped down next to Brienne.

“What are we laughing about?” he asked.

“Does your brother have a Harry Styles tattoo?” she asked him. 

“No, he’s more of a Zayn guy,” Tyrion said and one second they were all laughing and the next second Jaime was holding some guy by the front of his shirt. 

“Jaime!” Brienne and Tyrion yelled in unison, but it was like he didn’t hear them.

“Don’t fucking talk about my brother like that you piece of shit!” he was yelling. Neither Brienne not Tyrion had any idea what the man had even said.

“Jaime, Jaime, Jaime,” Tyrion was saying, pulling on his arm, trying to soothe him. “It’s OK, Jaime. Just let him go.”

The guy wasn’t even that big, but Jaime was so full of rage he looked like he could kill someone twice his size. That’s what he looked like, Brienne realized: murderous.

“Jaime,” she said, really softly, and she put her hand on his arm. He turned and looked at her and it was like he snapped out of it. The anger drained from his face. He realized the whole bar was looking at him. He let the man go, and he scampered off before Jaime could grab him again.

“Tyrion,” Jaime said, looking down at his brother. “I...I...I have to go.” And he ran out the door. Brienne followed without thinking. 

Thankfully he hadn’t really left — he was just pacing back and forth outside, swearing to himself. 

“Jaime,” she said, trying to get his attention, but he kept walking, kept muttering. She couldn’t make the words out.

“Jaime,” she said louder and finally he realized she was there. He looked so vulnerable and small and  _ scared _ .

“Stay away from me, Brienne,” he said, putting his hands up and taking a step back. She took a step forward.

“Jaime,” she said. “It’s OK. You didn’t do anything wrong. You just love your brother. You’d do anything for him.”

“That’s the problem,” he said, and he started to cry. “I don’t know how to love the right way. It turns into poison in my mouth. I’m not  _ right _ .” He leaned against the wall and slid down to the ground. She joined him.

“Stay away,” he mumbled again, through tears, but his heart wasn’t in it. She rubbed circles on his back until he calmed down a little. 

“Let’s go back to mine,” she said. He looked up at her, confused. “Get some tea into you, alright? And we can talk about it — or not.” He nodded and she helped him stand. 

“What about the equipment?” he asked, his voice sort of hoarse. 

“Sansa and Margaery can handle it. Come on.” And she grabbed his hand and he followed her home. He said nothing the whole time, but it was better than the crying had been.

By the time they got to her apartment, he was calmed down enough that he did feel some excitement at finally getting to see where Brienne lived. It wasn’t very big — technically a one bedroom apartment but closer to a studio. But it was warm and cozy. It felt like what he imagined hugging Brienne would feel like — if he ever let himself hug her. 

“Sit wherever you want,” she said as she went to the kitchen to put water up. “Do you like chamomile?” 

“Yeah, whatever you have is good,” he said, and he sat on the floor between the couch and the coffee table, which he knew was weird. But she said nothing as she brought two cups of tea over, plus a tin of biscuits, and sat down next to him. She reached for two pillows on the couch and handed him one. 

“Thanks,” he mumbled as he sat on it. The tea was good. She must have added honey. He drank half of it before saying anything. 

“I have to tell you something, Brienne,” he said, finally. His voice was less hoarse now. She should’ve felt panicked, but instead she was strangely calm. “I’m afraid you’re not going to like me anymore after I tell you.”

She shook her head. 

“Don’t be stupid,” she said. “I’m in too deep, I think. Plus, I’m too used to the free iced coffee.”

He smiled, just a little, but he was still withdrawn and scared. She touched his wrist and tried to give him a warm smile. He took another big sip of tea.

“My ex…” he said. “No, let me start with my sister… No… It’s fucked up whichever way I tell it, which is the problem.” She just listened while he tried to find the words.

He’d thought about this for weeks — how he would tell her. He never came up with a good solution.

“My sister was my ex. Is my ex,” he said as quickly as he could. “That’s why she tried to kill me. Or us. Maybe she didn’t really want to kill us, maybe she just wanted to prove she could, who knows.”

“Fuck,” Brienne said. That made him laugh.

“Yep,” he said. “The only normal response to that revelation, I think. So let me get out of your hair.” He tried to stand, and Brienne put a hand on his shoulder.

“Where are you going?” she asked, genuinely confused.

“I thought you… you’d want me to leave.”

She looked at him then, all sad and vulnerable and afraid and she knew she was deeply, truly fucked. It didn’t matter what he said. She loved him.

“Stop it,” she said. “Eat another biscuit.” He sat back down and did as she said. 

“You don’t have questions?” he asked once he was done.

“I have one million questions,” she admitted. “But I figured I’d let you say what you wanted to say first.” He laughed again at that, which made her happy. She didn’t want him looking so sad — or god forbid,  _ crying _ , again.

“I can’t figure out if it sounds less fucked up if I tell it from the beginning or from the end,” he said. 

“How about you stop worrying about being too fucked up and just tell whichever parts you want?”

“You would get along so well with my therapist,” he said, taking another biscuit. 

“We’re twins, did I tell you that?” She shook her head. “My parents said she was born first and I was holding her foot when I followed after her. Which is actually  _ physically impossible _ , I know now, but it made us feel...mythological. Like we were made for each other.”

Brienne just nodded, like that made sense. He didn’t deserve her understanding — but he heard Dr. Tarly’s voice in his head telling him to stop thinking in black and white. To stop thinking he wasn’t meant for good things.

“We were really young when we figured out that touching each other felt...good. Our mother was dead already, so we were 8 or 9, probably. But we didn’t know it was wrong, not really. And then our father sent us to boarding schools, which sort of played into the whole mythological thing. She’d send me letters and sign them Juliet.” He rolled his eyes. 

“Did you sign yours Romeo?” she asked, with a little smirk, and she nudged his shoulder.

“Is this the time for jokes?” he said, pouting.

“Yes,” she said, hitting her shoulder into his again. He smiled, just a little.

“Then we went to university and we just were...together. Nobody knew — well Tyrion figured it out, which fucking devastated him, because our sister wasn’t… Well, she treated Tyrion like absolute shit.” Brienne nodded vigorously. “She treated me like shit too, after a while. Just controlling and mean and … hurtful.” She could tell it was maybe too much to go into the details.

She put her hand on his knee and rubbed it.

“You don’t have to keep going,” she said, really softly. But he shook his head.

“We’re almost done,” he said. “And I want to tell you.” She nodded again. He dropped his head onto her shoulder. She liked it there. 

“So eventually, I kept trying to end it, but she kept pulling me back in. I mean, I kept going back. My therapist would say this was the cycle of abuse, but whatever. And then after our father died, I really wanted to be done. Tyrion was moving on with his life, and I wanted to, too. Be — not normal, but something approximating it, maybe. So I went to her, and I said this could be a fresh start for both of us, to be genuinely honestly happy. And she agreed.”

She could feel him tense. He was getting to the accident. 

“One day she calls me and tells me she needs to go to the old house to get some stuff — the family house in the country, we sold it now, but we still had it then. Will I go with her? I say yes, like an idiot, and when we’re on some back road she starts ranting about how I could never leave her, how we were made for each other, how we came into this world together and we’ll leave it together, and that’s when she crashed the car.”

He was silent for a long time after that. They just sat there, his head on her shoulder. She was too afraid to move and check if he’d fallen asleep.

“But really,” he said, after a long time. “Everything good in my life happened after that. Got into therapy. Patched things up with Tyrion. But sometimes I’m still so scared. Like tonight.”

“Bad things happened to you, Jaime,” she said. “That doesn’t make you bad.” He finally pulled his head off her shoulder. 

“Logically I know that. But sometimes...I worry that I’m rotten. Somewhere deep down.”

She shook her head.

“I loved my sister, but sometimes I think I hated her more. And I still had sex with her all the time.” And then Brienne  _ shrugged _ , like that was a normal thing to say. 

“That makes sense, honestly. Hate fucking is real.” He raised his eyebrows. 

“You have a lot of experience in that area?” Now she was the one looking away from him. 

“Unfortunately,” she said, drawing out the syllables. He sat up a little straighter. “Remember that guy who bet on my virginity?”

“Oh noooooo,” Jaime said. She shook her head, rolling her eyes.

“It was … two months later? Margaery dragged me to this party and I drank way too much and I was so sweaty and I saw him and I started yelling at him again and we ended up having sex in the bathroom.”

“Seven hells,” Jaime mumbled.

“It was … not the last time.” Jaime audibly groaned and then they were both laughing. 

“If that guy comes into the Red Keep, let me know,” he said, half kidding. 

“No!” she said. “Stop trying to fight people. It’s terrifying.” He reluctantly agreed. 

They talked for a long time after that. Brienne mademore tea. Jaime had expected that telling her the secret would make everything between them heavier, but somehow it had exactly the opposite effect. Brienne knew the worst thing about him, and she still liked him. How was he so lucky?

They eventually migrated to the actual couch and when Brienne started to fall asleep around 2 a.m. Jaime knew it was time to go.

“Don’t,” she said, groggy. “It’s too late. Sleep here. We can play hooky from work tomorrow. Eat something elaborate for lunch.”

“Wow, I’ve really been a terrible influence on you,” he said. 

He couldn’t say no. They did fight for a bit about who was taking the couch, but Jaime refused to kick her out of her own bed. She got him a pair of her sweatpants and a tee shirt, and she tried not to smile as she looked at him in her things. He tried to not creepily smell the shirt too much. Neither really succeeded.

"Brienne?" he said, after she'd turned out the lights. 

"Yeah Jaime?"

"How are you so cool with this? You're not weirded out?" She took a long time to choose her words.

"I'm not going to lie. It's  _weird_. But what am I going to do? Hold it against you? I think you've already beat yourself up enough. And you're not your past." She took a breath. "And I'm ... honored you told me."

"It's an honor to be listened to." 

—

They were at Tyrion’s on Tuesday, drinking a mocktail Pod had come up with, which he was planning to dedicate to Brienne. It had blueberries for her eyes, he said, and they were trying to come up with the nicest way of saying it tasted like sugary poison. When Jaime got up to use the restroom, Tyrion plopped himself next to Brienne.

“Brienne Tarth,” he said. “What are your intentions with my brother?” If she had liquid in her mouth, she would’ve sprayed him with it.

“My intentions?”

“My brother likes to put up a brave face, but he’s been through a lot,” he said.

“I know,” she responded.

“No, really,  _ a lot _ . He’s fragile.”

“I know,” she said again.’

“Not just the accident,” Tyrion said, like she hadn’t said anything. “Other stuff too.”

Brienne put her hand on his and he finally stopped talking.

“Tyrion,” she said. “I know. He told me.” His eyes grew wide.

“He told you everything? Even about...” She nodded. 

“I know why your sister won’t be visiting anytime soon.” A restraining order. Ironclad. She lived in Dorne now. Tyrion could only nod.

“Wow. Alright,” he said, and he smiled. Brienne could have pointed out that she hadn’t really answered his question, but he seemed pleased. 

“Wait,” she said. “What are  _ your intentions _ with my friends?” He winked at her.

“Pod,” he said, turning to the bartender. “Stop trying to put blueberry syrup in things. It’s terrible. We could try blue raspberry though…”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank u for reading this! i am so worried that this fic is bad and appeals to no one! your comments and kudos let me know i am even slightly on the right track.


	5. I wanna kiss you standing up

It was a slow night at the Red Keep. Pod was showing Jaime some cocktail shaker tricks he’d learned from YouTube. It was going surprisingly well. He’d only spilled one time. Tyrion came over to show Pod what he was messing up. Then he turned his attention to Jaime.

“Brother,” Tyrion said, in that tone of voice he got when he wanted to be smart, which was really just condescending. “What’s going on with you and our dear keyboardist?”

Jaime slammed his glass down. 

“Why does everyone want to know what’s going on? Why does everyone _think_ something is going on?” Tyrion raised his eyebrows.

“Definitely the reaction of someone for whom nothing is going on.” Jaime glared at him.

“Here, let me see if you like being questioned about your relationships — what’s going on with you and Margaery and Sansa?” he asked. Tyrion laughed, but Pod answered for him.

“Margaery and Sansa are in love with each other, but they’re both too afraid to admit it, so they use Tyrion as a buffer so they can be flirty and affectionate without it having to ‘mean’ anything. But Tyrion doesn’t mind because he knows they’ll be happy together when they finally figure it out,” Pod said. Both the brothers gaped.

“Yes,” Tyrion said. “That’s exactly it.” Pod shrugged.

“You hear a lot of stuff behind the bar. Everyone forgets you’re here,” he said. Tyrion laughed.

“Alright, do Jaime and Brienne next,” he said. Jaime groaned. 

“I mean, they love each other,” Pod said, simple.

“Come on,” Jaime said, banging his glass against the bar again.

“Stop doing that,” Tyrion said, taking it from his hand. “These cost money!”

“Brienne and me, it’s not like that —”

“You told her about — _everything._ You follow her around like, like a golden retriever. How is it not like that?” Tyrion said. Pod shrugged his agreement.

“Brienne deserves — Brienne deserves someone normal and, and not fucked up, and nice and _good_ —”

“You are good,” Tyrion interrupted.

“If I were good I’d just leave her alone!” Tyrion had had enough. 

“Who gives a fuck about what anyone deserves!?” he said, practically yelling. “She wants you and you want her. Stop being a baby.”

But Jaime just shook his head as his brother walked away. He couldn’t.

—

A few weeks later, Jaime went to Brienne’s apartment, oodles of noodles in hand. Ever since _that night_ , as he called it in his head, they’d hung out at her apartment all the time. She’d been to his place once, but she could tell he wasn’t particularly fond of his flat — it was spacious and cold and impersonal. Her place was none of those things.

Normally, she’d buzz him up, but someone was exiting the building as he entered, so he slipped inside without ringing the bell. He climbed the stairs quickly, reached her door, and went to knock, but stopped when he heard the noise on the other side.

Brienne was playing her keyboard. She was _singing_. He never got to hear her play by herself. He leaned his head against the door and closed his eyes, listening.

He’d never heard the song before. He wondered if she wrote it. It wasn’t pop-y like the one she’d played for them weeks earlier. It wasn’t a happy song. 

She had to have written it. He could feel it in his chest. But he couldn’t hear it clearly through the door. 

As soon as she finished, he knocked. She opened the door a minute later.

“Jaime?” she said. “Did you —”

“Yeah,” he said, handing her the bag of noodles and walking into her apartment. “It was really beautiful. Did you write it?”

She was blushing.

“Err, yeah, I did.” He wanted to get her to play again, but he knew he had to be delicate. “It was beautiful,” he repeated, like a lovestruck idiot. Which he was, for the record.

She nodded and changed the subject as she passed him his noodles. She liked hers super spicy, while he was, in her words, “a baby” about the chili oil. They talked about other things as they slurped them down — Brienne had recently learned that Jaime was obsessed with rom coms, and she grilled him about it all the time. 

“But everyone in _Love Actually_ acts terribly,” she said.

“Everyone in _Love Actually_ is willing to take big risks for love!”

“Alan Rickman breaks Emma Thompson’s heart!” she pointed out.

“Well not that plot! But Colin Firth!”

“He doesn’t even know that lady!”

And they went back and forth like that for a while, until Jaime found an excuse to bring them back to her keyboard, still set up in the corner.

“I took piano lessons when I was younger,” he said, sitting down behind it. She watched him warily, but said nothing.

“I guess I can’t play anymore, though,” he said, gesturing with his right arm.

“Did you ever learn ‘Heart & Soul’?” she asked, sitting on the bench beside him. He nodded. “The top part only needs one hand,” she reminded him. 

He smiled, then frowned. 

“But I learned it on the right,” he pointed out. She nudged his shoulder. 

“Jaime, little kids learn to play this. I think we can figure it out on your left hand.”

It took some finagling, and Jaime did slightly more complaining than was strictly necessary, but eventually they got it – or a decent approximation of it. The song quickly devolved into laughter.

“We’ll work on it,” she said, as he got up and laid on her bed. She thought to complain, but she liked the way he looked there. Comfy. Safe. And he’d kicked off his shoes, at least.

“Play me one of your songs,” he said, before she could get up. She opened her mouth to respond but he cut her off. “Don’t pretend you haven’t been writing songs. Just play me one. Please. If you want. No pressure, but it would be really great. Just like, something soft? The one from before, or something else, whatever. Nothing crazy, if you want —”

“Be quiet,” she said. “I wrote this in college. Junior year? I think.” And then she started to play. It was a Christmas song — a winter song, it was probably more accurate to say.

“[ _I want a snowfall kind of love_ ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vjZJ__LysvM) _. The kind of love that quiets the world._ ”

Jaime had never realized Brienne was such a romantic. He closed his eyes and leaned back. She sounded nervous at first, but she grew more confident as she went. He smiled to himself. _Gods,_ he loved her. 

When she was done, he gave her a small round of applause, which made her blush. He propped himself up on his arm so he could look at her.

“How many songs have you written?”

“Uhh, I don’t know,” she said, playing trills on the keyboard. “A couple dozen.”

“What do you do with them?” he asked. She shrugged. “Do you want to do anything with them?” Another shrug.

“I mean, music isn’t going to be my job or anything. I’m not going to be a _pop star_.”

He was readjusting the pillows to get more comfortable. 

“You don’t have to be a _pop star,_ ” he said, mimicking her tone. “You could just get the band to play them. Or record them and put them online. Or go to open mics by yourself or —”

“Jaime,” she whined. “Can we just leave it?”

“Fine, fine,” he said. “I just think if you’re good at something, you should do it.”

“I’m not —”

“Don’t say you’re not good,” he said. She sighed.

“Fine,” she said. “I’ll think about it. Now be quiet.”

And miraculously, she played him another song.

That night when she went to bed, her pillow still smelled like him. 

—

“How’s your new song coming?” Margaery asked at the end of their next rehearsal. Brienne shrugged.

“I still don’t know what it’s about,” she mumbled, banging out a few notes on the keyboard. 

“Brienne,” Margaery said, frustrated. “ _Come on._ ”

“Come on what?” she asked, not looking up. 

“Leave her alone, Margaery,” Sansa said, putting her bass in its case. “She doesn’t want to talk about it. We can’t make her.”

“There’s no ‘it’ to talk about,” Brienne said, still not looking up. Now Sansa sighed.

“Well that’s not true,” she said, hands on her hips. “Don’t be obtuse.”

“I’m not,” Brienne said, still fiddling with the keyboard so she didn’t have to meet them in the eye. “Jaime and I are friends. But it’s not going to go past that.”  
“Do you want it to go past that?” Margaery asked. For second, Brienne thought about lying.

“Of course I do.” Sansa let out a little gasp, which she ignored. “But it’s not going to happen.”

“Brienne —” Margaery said.

“No, it’s not. Jaime doesn’t see me that way, which is _fine_. He’s a great friend. And I’ll get over it eventually. I always do.”

“That is the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard!” Sansa yelled, much sterner than Brienne had ever heard her. Even Margaery jumped. Sansa pulled out her phone. “Look at this!” she said, shoving it in front of Brienne’s face.

It was one of the photos Jaime had taken during rehearsal. Brienne was laughing, her head thrown back. She’d always felt self-conscious about her laugh — it was so loud — but she looked joyous here. She looked beautiful, really, genuinely. She pushed the phone away.

“Jaime’s a very talented photographer,” she said, moving to unplug her keyboard. 

“Gods, Brienne,” Sansa said. “The photos of me and Margaery don’t look like _that._ You spend most of your free time together, he’s always texting you, he looks at you like you hung the stars in the sky —”

“That’s a good song lyric, you should write that down, Brienne,” Margaery butted in. 

“Stop!” Brienne yelled as she finished packing away her keyboard. “We’re friends. He trusts me. But he’s not _in love with me_.”

“Tyrion says he is,” Margaery whispered. “But he thinks he’s too afraid to make the first move.”

“Did Jaime _tell him that,_ or is he making assumptions?” Margaery and Sansa looked chagrined.

“It’s a bad idea,” Brienne said. “It’s a very bad idea.”

“But what if it wasn’t?” Sansa said. “What if he feels the same way about you that you feel about him, and you never find out because you’re both afraid?” Margaery shot Sansa a look, but Brienne missed it.

 _What if he felt the way I felt about him?_ She thought about it as finally left the girls’ apartment, leaving them both with hugs. She thought about it on her way home, and when she got home, and as she brushed her teeth and crawled into bed. _What if you felt the way I felt about you?_

In the morning, she finally admitted to herself that she knew what the song was about.

—

Dr. Tarly saw things the way Tyrion did.

“She deserves better than me!” he told her. “It’s the truth! Why does no one agree with me?!”

Dr. Tarly shook her head. 

“Why Jaime? What’s so bad about you?” His eyes practically bugged out of his head.

“I’m — I’m fucked up!” Even he was tired of hearing him say it, honestly.

“Everybody’s fucked up, Jaime,” she said. “So you’ve decided you’re just going to be unhappy forever?”

“I guess so,” he said, crossing his arms and pouting.

“Then what’s the point of all this?” she said, waving around the office. “If you’ve decided it’s not even worth it to try.” He put his head in his hand.

“I’m so scared,” he mumbled. “I don’t want to hurt her.” Dr. Tarly shook her head, not unkindly.

“It is scary, so it makes sense you’re scared. And if you do hurt her, it’s not because you’re a bad person. It’s because being a human is hard and messy.”

Jaime sighed. 

“Do something for me, Jaime,” she said. “Close your eyes.” He rolled his eyes, but obliged. “Picture yourself at age 10. Whatever stuff you liked then. Football? Video games? Whatever.”

Jaime did what she said. He saw himself at a kid, in a football jersey — Arsenal — with sweat dripping off of him after a good match. Victorious. He was smiling. 

“Now,” Dr. Tarly said. “Tell that kid he’s too fucked up for anyone to love. That he doesn’t deserve to be happy.”

“Come on,” Jaime said, opening his eyes.

“No,” she said. “Close your eyes. Tell 10-year-old you that he doesn’t deserve to have somebody love him.” 

“I can’t! He’s not!” When did he start crying?

“Good,” she said. “So every time you want to tell yourself that you’re too _fucked up,_ imagine yourself saying that to that kid. Because that’s who you’re saying isn’t good enough.”

After she let him cry for a bit, she said, “Maybe it won’t work out with Brienne and you’ll go back to being friends or you’ll just be acquaintances who say hi when you run into each other at the store. But you’re definitely going to be alone forever unless you take a chance on _someone_ — and yourself.”

—

The next time Brienne arrived at Margaery and Sansa’s, she opened the door without knocking. Which was a mistake, because they were making out on the couch. They hadn’t even noticed she walked in.

“Finally,” Brienne said as she shut the door. That made the two girls spring apart, guilty looks on their faces. But Brienne was smiling.

“How long?” she asked, as she set up her equipment. Sansa bit her lip, blushing.

Margaery laughed. “It’s your fault, actually. After you left last week, we were talking about you and Jaime and why you were both so scared…”

“Which led to talking about us and why we were both so scared,” Sansa finished.

“But it shouldn’t change the band!” Margaery said. Brienne laughed.

“We sing love songs,” she said. “Of course it’s going to change the band. For the better.” 

She plopped down on the couch between them and pulled them in for a group hug. When they let go, Brienne took a big breath.

“I finished the song,” she said. Margaery and Sansa gasped.

“Holy shit,” Sansa said.

“I didn’t think you had it in you,” Margaery added. 

“Play it for us!” Sansa said. Brienne set up her keyboard, took a big deep breath, and banged it out for them.

“Oh my God,” Sansa said when she was done.

“It’s…beautiful,” Margaery said. “But also horny? But in a coy way.” Brienne laughed.

“I figured you’d sing it, Marg,” she said.

“Oh _no_ ,” she replied. “I’m not stealing your awkward horny love song!”

“It’s not an awkward horny love song.” Brienne sighed. “Let’s figure out the backup vocals.”

“I can’t believe you’re going to tell Jaime you love him in the middle of our show!” Sansa squealed.

“It’s not a love song!” Brienne said. “It’s a … declaration of intent.”

“It’s hot,” Margaery said. “And she’s not telling him in the middle of the show. We’re doing it at _the end_ of the show, so they can make out right after.”

“ _Margaery_ ,” Brienne said.

“It’s a good thing Tyrion moved us to Friday, so you won’t have to worry about going to bed at a reasonable hour,” she said with a big bawdy wink. Brienne forgot they were doing Friday this week. Oh God, so many people were going to be there.

“What will you wear?” Sansa asked.

“Backup vocals!” Brienne said again, but she was ignored. Sansa had run off to her room and returned with, improbably, a dress.

“I made you this but I never thought you’d actually wear it but you _have to_. This is the dress you wear when you tell someone you love them.” Brienne sighed, but she was also smiling. Her friends were insane, but it felt good to know they just wanted her to be happy. 

“If you learn the arrangement, I”ll try on all the clothes you want.”

—

“Are you excited for tonight?” Jaime asked while they ate lunch on Friday. It was too cold to eat outside, so they were standing at the counter at their favorite sandwich place. Brienne shrugged.

“Are you nervous?” he asked instead. She shook her head, then nodded. 

“I mean...It’ll be fine,” she choked out, finally. She knew she was being weird, but she couldn’t remember how to _not be weird._ He’d just have to wait for the explanation. 

Jaime, meanwhile, was silently freaking out, so he couldn’t stop talking. About his day at work, about how far he wanted to run tomorrow, about whether he should’ve gotten a different sandwich, about anything except the thing he wanted to talk about, but was still too scared to. It’s not like he could talk about it right now, in the middle of the work day, over sandwiches. And maybe he could talk to her tonight, but it was a big night for the Rosewolves — their first Friday — and he didn’t want to make any of it about him and his feelings.

When they were walking back to their building, Jaime babbling about how it was cold enough for a heavy jacket but too warm for a light coat, Brienne cut in.

“We’re performing one of my songs tonight,” she said. He stopped in his tracks.

“Really?” he said. She nodded. His whole face lit up and then he _hugged her._

“I’m so excited,” he said as he let her go. She hadn’t even had time to wrap her arms around him, too. She almost reached out for him. Almost.

“It’ll be brilliant,” he said as he started to walk again. She had to believe him.

—

Jaime had to go to three bodegas to find one that sold flowers, but eventually he landed at the right one. But then he had to make a choice.

Roses were too much. Carnations were too cheap. 

 _Daisies are the friendliest flower._ That’s what Meg Ryan said in _You’ve Got Mail_ , which he’d been trying to get Brienne to watch, to no avail. She said she never found Tom Hanks charming, which was _insane._ But the daisies still felt right.

The flower quest meant that he arrived at the bar later than usual, and he was panicking that the Rosewolves would have gotten there first. He knew if he gave Brienne the flowers before she performed, it would freak her out even more. 

Thankfully, he arrived before the band. He ran over to the bar, where Pod was cutting lemon wedges.

“Pod, hide these behind the bar for me?” The bartender looked suspicious, but reached for them.

“Why do you have flowers?” Tyrion asked, coming out of nowhere to snatch the bouquet. 

“Just hide them!” Jaime said, frantic. Tyrion held them above his head. 

“Are you planning on telling our keyboardist how you feel?” Tyrion asked, grinning.

“No — I mean, eventually, but not today!” Jaime said, reaching for the flowers. “She’s performing a song she wrote. She’s nervous! Can you just hide them?”

He looked at Pod, who had sympathy for him. He grabbed the daisies from Tyrion and stashed them behind the bar. 

“Thank you, thank you.”

And it wasn’t a moment too soon, because a minute later, the Rosewolves waltzed in.

Sansa and Margaery had their arms around each other, which seemed to prove Pod’s summation of the relationship right. Tyrion whistled.

Then Brienne came in, and Jaime was pretty sure he looked like a cartoon wolf, eyes bugging out of his head. She was wearing a dress. A very short, navy blue slip dress with little clusters of sparkle on it that looked like stars. Her legs seemed miles long. She wore her leather jacket on top, and Jaime could only imagine her freckled shoulders underneath.

She put her equipment down and then sauntered over to the bar.

“Pod,” she said, ignoring Jaime and his puppy dog eyes. “Can I have a tequila soda? A double, actually.”

Pod raised his eyebrows but made it anyway. She drank half of it in one gulp.

“Don’t be nervous,” Jaime said, putting his hand on her arm. She looked at him then. “It’ll be fine,” he added.

She smiled, small and hesitant.

“I know,” she said. “I know.” She finished the rest of her drink in another gulp, gave the men a head nod, and walked away.

“Gonna be a fun night,” Tyrion said, with a smirk.

Brienne approached Margaery and Sansa, who were setting up the amps. She put her hands on her hips and surveyed their equipment.

“I...don’t know if I can do this,” she said. Both the girls stopped what they were doing.

“You have to,” Margaery said. 

“You don’t have to,” Sansa said, shooting Margaery a look. “But you should.”

Brienne bit her lip and slid off her jacket. She was so hot, suddenly. Sansa came over and took her hands in hers.

“It’s a really good song,” she said.

“It’s a great song,” Margaery added, putting her hand on her shoulder. “You’ve written so many great songs. Everyone is going to love it.” Brienne shook her head.

“They will,” Sansa agreed. “It’s OK to show yourself, Brienne. To be… you know, vulnerable.” Margaery squeezed her shoulder. 

“Alright,” she said. “We’ll do it and be legends.” Margaery squealed and hugged her. Sansa was tearing up. Brienne released herself from their clutches.

“When did we get so huggy? We have to finish setting up!”

As they did, the room filled, bringing by far the biggest crowd they’d ever played for. Every time Brienne felt a little overwhelmed, she looked at Sansa or Margaery or Jaime, who all gave her reassuring smiles. It was going to be fine. Even Pod ran over with water for all three of them before they started.

“Hello lovers,” Margaery said when they were ready to start. “Are you ready for the night of your lives?”

And it really was. The Rosewolves absolutely crushed it. The fact that Margaery and Sansa kept looking at each other like they were going to have sex on the bar as soon as they were done only heightened the whole thing. 

And Brienne was just fucking _in it._ If you’d asked Jaime before that night if Brienne ever held back while she was playing, he would’ve said of course not. But now he saw that she had been. She’d kept something just for herself, and tonight she was letting them all have it. He wasn’t going to tell her he loved her tonight, but tomorrow morning he just might.

After Margaery faked her way through Mariah Carey’s “Always Be My Baby” — again, she really didn’t have the range — , she grew serious.It was still Margaery, so it wasn’t _that_ serious.

“Alright lovers, for the last song of the night, we have a special treat. Our very own Brienne Tarth has blessed us with an original song.” Margaery announced. Everyone cheered, high off the adrenaline of the songs they did know. Brienne couldn’t help herself — her eyes found Jaime’s. He gave her a big thumbs up.

She leaned into her mic.

“This is a song about,” she began, but she didn’t know how to finish the sentence. “The person this song is about…” She stopped and took a deep breath. Sansa gave her an encouraging smile. Brienne released a small sigh.

“If this person who this song is about doesn’t figure it out by the time it’s over, there’s no hope for him at all.” She grinned and Jaime felt his heart lurch in his chest. Did she…

She started to play and he realized it was the song from the photoshoot. And then she sang.

“[ _I hope that you don’t think I’m rude_ ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eNtK6jx9y4A) _, but I want to make out with you_.”

Holy shit, Jaime thought. Holy shit holy shit holy shit. Holy shit.

“ _And I'm a little awkward, sure. But I could touch my face to yours_.”

Tyrion elbowed him in the ribs but he didn’t even feel it. He couldn’t stop grinning.

“ _I just wanna kiss you and even if I miss you, at least I'll know what it's like to have held your hand._ ”

Brienne felt like she was flying. The whole bar was with her. The whole bar, including, hopefully, Jaime.

“ _Bad ideas. I know where they lead._ ”

He laughed. This was possibly the best moment of his entire life. He wanted to remember every second of it.

“ _And if tomorrow makes me low, Well it'd be worth it just to know. 'Cause I can't get enough, no I wanna kiss you standing up._ ”

He ran a hand through his beard, suddenly bashful. Yeah, he wanted to kiss her standing up. And sitting down. And lying down… 

“ _I just want a kiss to get me through 'cause now all my bed-sheets smell like you._ ”

Brienne Tarth wanted to kiss him. Brienne Tarth wanted to kiss him so badly that she wrote a song about it and played it for a bar full of strangers, and him. His heart was thumping out of his chest. 

“ _If you think you miss me, come on back and kiss me. I just gotta know what you and I would feel like._ ”

Gods, Jaime was going to have to plan something stupidly romantic for her. It was going to take a lot of work to match this. No, he could never match this. But he was going to spend the rest of his life trying.

The moment the band finished, the bar exploded with applause. Margaery, ever the showman, made Brienne take her own bow. Jaime wolf-whistled.

When the ovation ended, Jaime turned to ask Pod for the flowers. The bartender was already holding them out for him. 

“Go get her,” Pod said. Jaime nodded.

Sansa and Margaery were walking over to the bar, hand in hand, as the crowd started to mill around. Bronn put on a new playlist, something stupidly loud. 

Brienne was leaning against the wall behind her keyboard. Jaime realized she was watching him. The tips of his ears grew warm under her gaze.

He stood up and slowly started to approach her. Brienne kicked off the wall, never looking away from him as she walked over to him. They met in the middle, surrounded by people who didn’t realize what was going on (though they knew Tyrion, Margaery, Sansa, Pod and probably even Bronn were watching at the bar).

For one moment, they were frozen there, Jaime holding out the flowers and Brienne about to reach out to grab them. They smiled at each other, suddenly shy. Whatever dumb song was playing, it was too loud for them to talk.

“Thank you,” Brienne mouthed, feeling a blush rise to her cheeks. For once, she didn’t mind. Jaime’s thumb stroked the back of her hand as she took the slightly rumbled bouquet from him. They couldn’t stand here forever, she knew.

Reading her mind, Jaime leaned his head towards the door. She nodded, then grabbed his hand with her free one. She squeezed it as she led him toward the exit. She noticed Margaery blowing them a kiss from the bar and she shook her head, still grinning.

Outside, it was a million times quieter. She knew, logically, that it was kind of cold, especially for two people without jackets, but she didn’t feel the chill at all. Jaime’s hand was so warm in hers. She leaned against the wall. He stood in front of her, looking up with amazement in his eyes.

“I can’t believe you wrote a song for me,” he whispered.

“I didn’t write a song for you,” she said, smirking. “I wrote a song for me. It’s _about_ you.”

“An honor, still,” he said before biting his lip. “I particularly liked that part where you said you wanted to know what I would taste like.”

She hit him lightly with the flowers. 

“It was _feel_ like. Feel.” She thought about it. “Taste is better though, I might steal —”

And then he stood on his toes and _finally_ kissed her. She gasped against his mouth as he pushed her against the wall, his hand at the back of her neck, his arm around her waist. She felt bad dropping her flowers to the ground, but she needed both her hands to pull him closer. _Jaime._

She almost couldn’t believe she finally had him where she wanted. Jaime Lannister was kissing her like if he stopped he would die. If he stopped, _she_ would die.

His lips were so soft. They kept nipping at hers, his tongue teasing her. His hand was pulling at her hair, just a little. She moaned.

Every other time she’d kissed someone — and it was not a long list of people — she’d always worried if she were doing it right, or if the other person was really thinking about what a terrible kisser she was. But all she could think about now was Jaime and how good he was making her feel. She pulled him tight and flipped around so he was against the wall now.

“ _Gods_ ,” he said as she ran her lips down his jaw, through his beard, to his chin. It felt one million times better than she could have imagined — and she had imagined it a lot. She ran her hand through his hair. It was so soft.

“So that’s what I meant when I said I wanted to kiss you standing up,” she mumbled. He ran his hand up her thigh and she shivered. She forgot that she was wearing the tiniest dress, but Jaime clearly hadn’t. He planted kisses on her neck.

“Not a bad idea,” he muttered, pressing his fingertips into her hips.

“Jaime,” she whined as he nipped at her skin.

“Oh, a man could get used to you saying that,” he said.

She kissed the corner of his mouth. His cheek. His eyebrow.

“Honestly, how did I go this long without kissing you?” she said before touching his lips again. 

“Two paragons of self-restraint,” he said. “That’s us.” He kissed her shoulder, then pulled back to look at her. She’d never seen him look so happy. And knowing it was because of her … it was almost too much. Almost. She kissed him again, nice and slow. It was so easy, already. They just fit together.

Soon they would get too cold, and they’d have to go back in the bar and get teased by their friends. Or they’d decide to abandon their jackets at the Red Keep and call a cab and go to his apartment and not resurface for two days. Or they’d fall asleep on her couch and she’d still wake them up early to go for a run, because it was still Saturday. 

But right now there was this. Jaime in her arms. The way he was meant to be.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> whew. i have never spent so much time writing and revising and writing one chapter. hopefully it worked out OK. the first song brienne plays for him is ingrid michaelson's "snowfall." the second song is, of course, tessa violet's "bad ideas." "What if you felt the way I felt about you?" is a line from "oh no" by softee, a great song you should go listen to right now.
> 
> will post the epilogue soon. thanks as always for reading and commenting and kudos-ing. you're all stars.


	6. And I can't get enough (epilogue)

_ Three Weeks Later _

Brienne exited her bathroom, fresh from the shower. She pulled the tie of her robe tighter as she leaned against the doorway, watching Jaime scramble eggs at the stove. He was wearing her sweatpants and one of her shirts. It gave her a little thrill to see him wrapped up in her things.

“You know,” he said, when he noticed her. “It sort of bothers me — well bothers isn’t the right word, but I can’t think of a better one — that I’m the one who loves grand romantic gestures, but you’re the one that actually got to do one.” The toaster went off and he scurried down the counter to rescue the bread, almost burning his hand in the process. 

This was their new routine on Saturdays. They’d go for a run in the morning, then go to one of their apartments to shower and make breakfast. Jaime had wanted to keep going out for breakfast, but Brienne convinced him to be a little more frugal. Well, that’s what he let her believe, but really she was much more generous with kisses when they were alone, and he was very greedy. 

“Actually,” Brienne said, as she walked around her table and toward her dresser, “I think it’s perfect that way.” She pulled out her under things, a pair of leggings, an oversized sweater, and big fluffy socks. She piled them next to her and sat down on the bed.

Jaime added cheese to the eggs and stirred them. 

“And why’s that?” he asked.

“Well you love big romantic gestures, and you got one from me. And I love small romantic gestures, and I get lots from you.”

He turned to face her. She was half dressed — wearing a sweater and underwear and socks, but she hadn’t pulled her leggings on yet. She saw his eyes run up and down her legs. Her instinct was to feel nervous, to cover up, but she was trying not to give in to that instinct. Not with Jaime, who was very …  _ vocal _ about how much he liked her body. He said she was beautiful and she believed that he believed that, which was a start.

He cocked an eyebrow.

“What, may I ask, is a small romantic gesture?”

She pulled her leggings on and stood up. 

“Like... you made me a cup of tea while I was in the shower because you know I let it cool off for 20 minutes before I drink it, but you didn’t want me to have to wait.”

She walked over and took the cup of tea from where it sat on the counter, nice and milky and too cool for most people, but perfect for her.

“That’s nothing,” he said, checking the eggs. Finding them perfectly done, he turned off the stove and slid them on to two waiting plates.

“It’s not,” she said, wrapping one of her arms around his waist. “Or how you bought the lotion I like to keep at your place after I complained my skin was dry that one time.”

He handed her a plate, loaded with eggs and bacon and toast.

“That’s just being considerate,” he said, picking up his own dish. She shook her head and let him go so they could sit and eat.

“Or when you make sure the good pillow is on my side of the bed. Or last week, when you bought a pint of pistachio ice cream from that fancy place because I had a bad day and you remembered it’s my favorite — this bacon is perfect,” she said, digging into her food. He still wasn’t eating though, his arms crossed as he watched her.

“That stuff is nothing,” he said, a little annoyed. “Normal boyfriend stuff. It’s not special. You deserve...trumpets. Balloons. Harpsichords.”

“I think you mean harps,” she said, not unkindly. “Harpsichords are like really old pianos.” He shrugged. She found his foot with hers under the table and hooked his leg with her ankle. 

“I like normal boyfriend stuff,” she said. “I’ve never had it before — someone who pays attention to me like that. It’s special to me. And it all adds up to more than a trumpet or a harp or whatever.” She smiled at him. “Eat before your eggs get cold.”

He obliged, rubbing his foot against hers under the table. He was always touching her — another small romantic gesture that she loved.

“I just think you deserve something big and stupidly romantic,” he said, chomping on his toast.

“But I don’t want that,” she said. “So if you did do it, you’d be doing it for yourself, instead of me, which would make it selfish, and not romantic at all.”

He practically growled at that, but only because he knew she was right. 

But thankfully he had ideas for some more small romantic gestures he could give her — and they didn’t have to leave the apartment for any of them.

 

_ Eight Weeks Later _

It was late Sunday morning and they were still in bed. The night before, they’d lingered at the Red Keep, chatting with Pod and Tyrion, much later than they’d meant to. And then they’d stayed up much later than they meant to that night — well, early morning.

In the back of her mind, Brienne had sort of assumed that part of their relationship would flicker out eventually, or at least start to fade. She never would have said she was a  _ sexual _ person. She didn’t dislike sex, but she didn’t think about it that much. It was  _ fine. _

Sex with Jaime was not  _ fine. _ Sometimes when he touched her, she felt like putty in his hands. The way he grabbed her hips, the way his beard prickled all her most secret places, the way his tongue…

Sometimes he would look at her like...she didn’t even have the words to describe it. She’d never felt so safe and loved and seen before. Sometimes she cried (sometimes he cried).

But it wasn’t all tender touches. Like last night. They’d been rough and fast and hard — they hadn’t even taken off all their clothes before he bent her over the table, sliding inside of her. It was only when they were done that she had worried that they  _ might _ have been too loud and woken her neighbors. Hopefully they slept with earplugs. Maybe she’d send them a fruit basket.

It was almost noon and she still felt high from it, wrapped up next to him, naked in her bed. His head was on her stomach and she was idly running her fingers through his hair. They’d have to get up soon, but, for now, she didn’t want to.

“Do you ever worry that we’re going too fast?” he asked, quietly. She wrapped one of his curls around her finger.

She knew what he meant. They spent so much time together. On the rare nights that he did sleep at his apartment, she usually showed up there, too. She’d given him one of her drawers, though he still stole her clothes all the time. She tried to return the favor as often as possible.

“No,” she said, decisively. “Do you?”

He looked up at her then, all golden and vulnerable and soft. He shook his head.

“But…” she prompted. 

“Sometimes I feel like I  _ should _ think we’re moving too fast.” She understood. Before Jaime, she’d had a careful checklist in her head, waiting to apply it to some hypothetical relationship. Date this long before saying, “I love you.” Date this long before moving in together. Date this long before you start thinking about what you could name your kids.

Jaime had told her he loved her one month to the date of their first kiss. She had not left him waiting for a response.

“I know what you mean,” she said, rubbing the tips of her fingers against his scalp. “But the way I see it is…”

She let her voice trail off while she weighed her words. Jaime just waited. She thought he would wait all day, if she asked him to, and she loved him for it.

“I never used to think I’d find something like this,” she said. “Never. Once I had a dream… it’s hard to explain. I had a dream I was in love, not with anyone in particular. Some dream person who loved me back in every way I wanted. It hadn’t felt like a dream. And then I woke up, and I felt so bereft for the rest of the day. Like a mini heartbreak, because I thought I’d never find that in real life.”

Jaime turned then, anchoring his arms on the mattress and climbing up the bed. He planted his head on the pillow next to hers, looking her right in the eyes as she continued.

“What I’m saying is, I did find it. Improbably. So why should I keep you at bay because of some idiot idea that it’s too much, too soon?”

He kissed the tip of her nose.

“You should write that down, for one of your songs,” he said, with a little smile. She ran her hand through his hair again.

“Oh I’m already working on a new one for you.  _ You’re so vain, I bet you think this song — _ ”

“I know that one,” he murmured before quieting her with a kiss.

 

_ 103 Weeks Later _

Jaime was in Brienne’s kitchen, going through her junk drawer, throwing out what they didn’t need and packing what they did. Even though he’d officially lived there for six months after he’d sold his apartment, and even though he’d spent countless nights there before he’d made his residency official, it was still Brienne’s kitchen to him. Everything about the apartment was so her.

_ Their _ kitchen and  _ their _ apartment awaited them. It was spacious but warm, with big windows and a huge kitchen and a fireplace. They’d used a combination of Jaime’s inheritance money and Brienne’s songwriting money.

Jaime — and Margaery and Sansa and even Tyrion — had convinced Brienne to start putting her songs on Soundcloud. Brienne had refused to check to see if they’d gotten any listens, but Jaime knew that they slowly racked them up. 

And then one day she’d gotten an email from a pop star who had heard one of the songs and wanted to buy it for an exorbitant amount of money. And then the song was a top 10 hit. And then the pop star wanted to pay Brienne to help her write more songs. And then some of her pop star friends wanted to pay Brienne to write songs for them, too. 

Suffice it to say, she was no longer a social media coordinator for a charity that didn’t really do anything. 

The only song she wouldn’t sell was “Bad Ideas.” Jaime knew he should tell her to stop being so sentimental and agree to one of the very generous offers for it, but his beating, romantic heart liked that she wanted to keep it just theirs, too. 

They mostly finished packing that night. They would officially be moved in to the new place by the end of the week, and Jaime couldn’t wait, but he would miss this apartment, too. They were moving on.

Most of the furniture was gone already, so they sat on the floor, eating pizza and drinking beers, like carefree college seniors they’d never really been. Jaime kept clinking his bottle against hers. It was the only way he could think of to make clear the joy he felt, from the top of his head to the tips of his toes. 

“Brienne,” he said, in the voice he used when he wanted to tell her something important. It was low and almost hoarse. She nodded. He took her hand in his and absent-mindedly rubbed circles into her palm.

“I know that you… I know that you don’t want to do it yet. Or maybe ever. And that’s fine. But I want you to know — I just want it to be clear — that I want to marry you. The minute you decide you want to marry me. Just say the day.”

Her eyes flashed to his. She’d known he wanted to marry her, the same way you know your best friend loves you without her having to say the words. But hearing the words...

She pressed her lips to his forehead. 

“What if I decide I never want to get married?” He felt her frown against his skin. He knew all her worries about marriage, about its legacy as a patriarchal institution, about the way women were hurt by it and men benefitted. He wondered if it made him selfish that he still wanted to marry her.

“That’s fine,” he said. She pulled away.

“ I don’t want you to waste time waiting for me to change my mind if I never do…”

He gave her a little smile. His noble Brienne.

“I want to be with you. The only person I want to marry is you. But if you never want to get married, as long as you want to be with me, I’m staying right here.”

“OK,” she said, nodding. “Are you done with your beer?”

He nodded. She got up and took their beer bottles to the trash, then helped him up. 

Most of their furniture was gone, but they still had a bed. 

 

_ 122 Weeks Later _

Margaery and Sansa were shopping for some gala fundraiser Margaery’s grandmother was making them attend, and Brienne tagged along. Technically she was also supposed to be looking for something to wear, but she had an old dress that she thought was fine (and that always made Jaime ... ravenous) that she already planned on wearing. So shopping was really an excuse for girl time.

“If I wear red you can’t wear yellow,” Margaery was saying to Sansa as they ran their hands through the racks. “We’ll look like the McDonald’s logo.”

“It’s a very trendy color combo,” Sansa said. Her own clothing line was starting to take off, with a small but loyal online following, but she’d moved away from formal wear, otherwise she would have just made them something to wear.

Brienne wandered away from them, running her hands along the dresses, not really paying attention. Some were soft. Some felt cheap. Some scratched her skin. 

And then she saw it. It was light blue, or maybe icy blue, and covered in silver embroidery. The top was structured — maybe a corset? — but the bottom was perfectly flowy. It looked like something a mermaid might wear, or an ice princess. An ice princess who took no prisoners. 

Before she knew what she was doing, Brienne had it in her hands. It might be too short. It might not fit. But…

“You have to try it on,” Sansa said, suddenly behind her. Brienne looked up at her, feeling like she’d been caught red handed. But she nodded and walked off to the dressing room.

When she got home later that afternoon, Jaime was sitting at the bar in their kitchen, editing photos on his laptop. She leaned against the fridge, watching him for a few moments. The love of her fucking life. He looked up at her and smiled. 

“What has you in such a good mood?” he asked. She shook her head.

“I’ll tell you later.” 

Later they were in bed, snuggling and watching  _ When Harry Met Sally _ , Jaime’s favorite. As the credits rolled, Brienne said, finally, “I bought a dress.”

He turned so he could look at her. He studied the expression on her face.

“That’s … unlike you,” he settled on, not knowing why she was being so serious. “I thought you were wearing that other dress to the gala.”

“It’s not the gala.” He didn’t know why she was being so serious. He cocked an eyebrow at her. 

She pulled him a little closer. took a deep breath.

“I think it’s my wedding dress.”

Jaime’s mouth fell into a little O.

“Are you serious?” She nodded. “Really?” She nodded again. He was so happy he was frozen. A million thoughts when through his head, and instead he landed on, “Can I see it?”

“No! That’s bad luck!” she shrieked, nudging him with her elbow. He brought his hand to her face, running his thumb on her jaw.

“Well, when are you planning on letting me see it?”

She bit her lip, thinking. He played with her hair, but she could feel the nervous energy radiating off him. 

“What about New Year’s Eve?”

“Are you serious?” he asked. That was … three and a half months away. He’d do it tomorrow if she wanted.

“Stop asking me if I’m serious! Of course I’m serious.”

All he could do was kiss her. That’s what he should’ve started with.

“I love you so much,” he kept mumbling into her lips, her jaw, her neck. She was so happy, she almost wished she’d agreed to marry Jaime years ago. But she hadn’t known — hadn’t really known — until today. 

Later, she picked up her phone. 

“Who are you texting?” Jaime asked, pulling her closer to him, playing the big spoon for once.

“Sansa and Margaery, I’m telling them –”

He snatched her phone away.

“Don’t tell them yet! There’s nothing to tell them!” She laughed

“Jaime, we just—”

“Brienne Tarth, are we engaged?” he asked, stern.

“I mean, sort of…”

He kissed her neck.

“Believe me, when we’re engaged, you’ll know.”

“Jaime we just agreed to get married in four months! That’s pretty engaged. You don’t have to propose.”

He sighed dramatically.

“I want to propose. If you don’t want me to, I won’t, but I want to.”

She considered it. 

“OK. But nothing embarrassing. Or public.”

“Oh shit, I have to cancel the parade I just scheduled.”

“Jaime.”

“Brienne.” 

And then he had an idea. He pulled away from her and rolled out of bed. He ran over to his dresser and started digging through his sock drawer. 

“Jaime?” she asked, not sure what was happening. But then he found what he was looking for and he launched himself back onto the bed, sitting next to her. She saw the little box in his hands. She started to cry.

“Brienne Tarth,” he said, trying to be serious and failing. He couldn’t stop smiling. “Every morning I wake up and I can’t believe how lucky I am to have you in my life. Everyday I try to be the best man I can be because it’s what you deserve.”

Now he was crying, too.

“I had a plan!” he said, laughing. “I thought about what I was going to say a million times. But all I can say is that I love you and I want to have a big party where I tell everyone how much I love you, and then we spend the rest of our lives together with our thirteen kids.”

“Thirteen?” she said with a laugh.

“Fine, eight,” he said. He opened the box. “Marry me, Brienne.”

The ring was little, a thin silver band with a tiny sapphire in it. It was absolutely perfect. 

“When did you buy this?” she asked, picking it up and sliding it on her finger.

“Four years ago.” She wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him. “So that’s a yes?” he asked. 

“Yes,” she said, kissing his nose, his jaw, his chin. “Yes, yes, yes,” she whispered as she ran her lips across his beard. “I’m yours.”

Later, she remembered to say, “Don’t bother look in the closet for the dress. I left it with Margaery.”

 

_ 14 Weeks Later _

Sansa was maid of honor after all. Tyrion was best man and Margaery was the flower girl. Jaime’s Aunt Genna cried through the whole ceremony. They had the reception at the Red Keep, which was more than twice the size it had been five years earlier. 

Jaime and Brienne walked down the aisle together. He started crying as soon as he laid eyes on her in her sparkling blue dress, a crown of stars around her head.

“You’re such a softy,” she teased, running her hands down his lapel. He wore a navy blue suit with a white shirt. She’d told him she wouldn’t marry him if he shaved and he didn’t want to take the risk.

“Let’s go get married,” he said, taking her hand. 

So they did.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you so much for reading this! this chapter was just pure fucking fluff, and i have no regrets. hopefully you enjoyed as well.
> 
> every chapter title in this is a line from Tessa Violet's "Bad Ideas." If you still haven't listened to the song, there's no hope for you.
> 
> thanks to everyone who left kudos or a comment. every single one really cheered me up and made me keep writing this very ridiculous story.


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